The Lesson, Tragedy and Cost of War

So many stories are to be told and so many lessons are to be learned at the German Military Cemeteries in Normandy if only people would take the time to pay a visit and have the patience to listen.

I have lost count of the number of times clients tell me they have no wish to go to the largest of the German cemeteries at La Cambe. Somehow they seem, understandably, to feel that in doing so a kind of homage is being paid to the evil regime that put them there. Yet nothing could be further from the truth.

The truth is that these young men (80% under the age of 20) were all mother’s sons with two arms and legs, and had the same desires and aspirations of life as any other young man on this earth. Except that they had been born in Germany.

Every soldier on all sides fought with equal conviction for his own country. Every mother cried at the loss of a son. So what was the difference between them?

The difference was that Germany had elected a madman to power. Hitler and his Nazi party were regarded even by level headed Germans as saving Germany from depression, want and hunger. The tragic seeds of its destitution had been sown by the Treaty of Versailles which in 1919 had so impoverished Germany through demands of financial and territorial restitution towards the Allies that a return to a normal economic standard of living for German citizens was unattainable.

Then Hitler appeared and was regarded Germany’s saviour. He instituted work programs to motivate the economy and achieved a standard of living previously undreamed of. Then his sinister side emerged – an obsession with racial purity and the creation of a civilisation which would rule for a thousand years. Something in the German culture exacted the ordinary person to believe in Hitler’s successes and his evil doings were neither realised nor condoned except by a small minority. The Gestapo made sure of that.

The average German soldier fought fanatically for his country - what he believed was right and moreover had been ordered to do so. The Allied soldier the same. What individual would not fight for his country?

Returning to those unfortunate souls in the German Cemetery who paid the ultimate price for the ideology of a madman. My clients often hate them, chastise them and even spit on their graves for what they did. Does this hurt the dead? No. It only hurts the perpetrator. Like a miscreant child kicking and protesting against a parent, he only hurts himself. However the pain and resentment is entirely real.

The cure lies in understanding what those soldiers did and why they did it. From understanding comes compassion. From compassion comes forgiveness, and from forgiveness the seeds of peace, healing and reconciliation are sown as a powerful message to the world not to do it again.

As human beings those buried in the British, Canadian, American and German cemeteries were all the same. It is governments that incite, enable and condone wars, but it is also true that the people who elected them must also bear some share of responsibility.

It is that share of responsibility for which so many paid the ultimate price.