[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 73 (Monday, June 13, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 13, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                          LOOKING BEYOND D-DAY

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                         HON. ROBERT K. DORNAN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, June 13, 1994

  Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, as we continue to remember the 50th 
anniversary of World War II including the recent ceremonies at 
Normandy, I would like to include in the Record the following editorial 
by former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt entitled, ``Looking Beyond 
D-Day.''

                          Looking Beyond D-Day

                          (By Helmut Schmidt)

       Historians, looking back on the decisive acts and events 
     which shaped our bloody century, see June 6, 1944, as a 
     watershed. The invasion of Normandy by American, British and 
     Canadian troops certainly marks a turn in the fortunes of the 
     century. Without it, domination of much of Europe by Stalin 
     would have been a menacing probability. Hitler and his empire 
     were likely to be crushed anyway. But the presence of the 
     American Army and Air Force prevented the replacement of one 
     dictatorship by another hardly less cruel.
       It was worse than bitter that the Polish nation, the three 
     Baltic nations, the Czechs and Slovaks, the Hungarians and 
     many others, including one quarter of the German people, 
     could not be saved from Soviet oppression and supremacy. But 
     without D-Day and what followed, all of Central Europe and 
     possible parts of Western and Southern Europe as well would 
     have fallen into the lap of Soviet imperialism. For had the 
     United States not effectively become a European power in 
     1944--which Brezhnev finally accepted in Helsinki three 
     decades later--even the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union 
     a few years ago might not have led to the freeing of Eastern 
     Europe.
       As the elderly Westerners who participated in the Normandy 
     landings and the march to Berlin look back, it is natural 
     that they should remember their victory with pride. But the 
     wish of a few German politicians who are too young to have 
     been drafted into Hitler's Wehrmacht to be invited to the 
     grand anniversary seems to me quite inappropriate.
       Thanks to the Marshall Plan, to John McCoy (the United 
     States' postwar High Commissioner in the Federal Republic), 
     and to enormous American help towards shaping a normal 
     society and democracy in Germany, the will for reconciliation 
     on the side of the American victors has been apparent to me 
     for decades. Having been a conscripted German soldier at that 
     time, I have long been a convinced and co-operative ally and 
     friend of the United States. And the same is true of millions 
     of German combatants who are still alive. We don't need any 
     symbolic handshakes so late in the day.
       Nevertheless, it might still be interesting for the 
     descendants of the soldiers on either side to know how German 
     troops of that time understood the significance of the 
     Normandy invasion. From my school history, I knew that 
     Charles XII of Sweden and Napoleon had both been defeated 
     when they undertook to invade Russia. So was I convinced as 
     soon as Hitler invaded the Soviet Union that Germany in turn 
     would be defeated. To me, after June 1941, it was just a 
     matter of time, and also a question of how great the 
     sacrifices would prove to be. The disastrous end was 
     inevitable; only the timing was uncertain.
       To those of us fighting under such conditions, the arrival 
     of the Americans on the European continent did not make a 
     significant difference. During the Battle of the Bulge, I 
     suggested to my commander that we should let the Americans 
     come as far east as they wished, instead of fighting them, 
     and instead push back ``Ivan'', who had already entered 
     German territory.
       I was not court-martialled for that remark, since the 
     commander was a sensible man, but my tragedy was to be 
     fighting only because of a deeply ingrained sense of duty to 
     my country. This was the tragedy of innumerable Germans at 
     the time: we did not believe in Hitler's genius and 
     leadership, nor in his Third Reich. We had not believed in 
     him for quite some time--but nevertheless we did as we were 
     told by our superiors. A parallel to this psychological and 
     moral complex can perhaps be found in the brave behaviour of 
     French and American soldiers in Vietnam two decades later.
       Owing to the invasion of Normandy, the United States was 
     able to contain Soviet imperialism through four decades of 
     Cold War. The reconciliation between France and Germany which 
     Winston Churchill encouraged in his speech at Zurich in 1946 
     (when he also envisaged the creation of a united states of 
     Europe) was, like the initiatives of Jean Monnet and Robert 
     Schuman--made politically possible by the American presence 
     in Europe.
       Today, after the Soviet Union's collapse due to domestic 
     exhaustion and decay, almost half a century of global bi-
     polarity has come to an end. But Russia will remain a world 
     power, and it is still necessary for Germany to bind itself 
     into the European Union, so that the horrors of a great war 
     on this continent can never be repeated.
       And we in the West--whether in Washington or London, Paris, 
     Bonn or one of the other great capitals, whether in NATO or 
     in the European Union--must still define our roles 
     pragmatically in a world where local, regional, ethnic or 
     religious conflicts have surfaced once again, now that the 
     threat of East-West conflagration has been lifted. The 
     Atlantic Charter ought to stand, but it will not suffice.

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