Fernando Alcoforado*
The end of World War II in Europe was expected since February 1943, when the Soviet Army defeated the Wehrmacht (German Army) in one of the greatest military clashes in history, known as the Battle of Stalingrad. Later, on June 6, 1944, the Allies landed in Normandy, known as the “D-Day”. The operation is considered the largest sea invasion of history and has begun the liberation of the territories occupied by the Germans in northwestern Europe. The end of the war in Europe occurred after the Battle of Berlin, the last chapter of the Soviet offensive against the German forces. The battle began in April 1945, with the onslaught of Soviet troops in the Nazi-occupied countries that later moved to Berlin. On April 30, 1945, in the final stretch of the confrontation, the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler committed suicide. Shortly afterwards, Berlin gave in, forwarding the surrender that would happen on May 8, 1945.
Victory Day is related to the end of World War II in Europe on 8 May 1945 which is the formal date of the defeat of Nazi Germany and the victory of the Allies. On May 7, a preliminary document was signed indicating the surrender of the German troops. However, the formality of the surrender took place on May 8, through representatives of Germany, who, together with the presence of the Allied Forces Command and the Soviet Armed Forces, signed the unconditional surrender of Germany. The unconditional surrender of Germany was signed at dawn on May 7 by General Alfred Jodl who would later be sentenced to death by the Nuremberg Tribunal for war crimes and crimes against humanity. On the winning side, the capitulation certificate was signed by General Walter Bedell-Smith, Chief of Staff of the US General Dwight Eisenhower, and Soviet General Ivan Suslaparov. François Sevez, adjunct of the French general Alphonse Pierre Juin, also signed the document as a witness.
In fact, the date intended to be Victory Day was the 9th, not the 8th of May. However, the press was able to leak the news of the surrender and the celebration took place in the world on May 8. In the Soviet Union, Victory Day was marked for May 9, as was the combined date. The number of deaths during World War II was 20 million in the former Soviet Union, 5.5 million in Germany, 4 million in Poland, 2.2 million in China, 1.6 million in Yugoslavia, 1.5 million in the Japan, 535,000 in France, 450,000 in Italy, 396,000 in Great Britain and 292,000 in the United States. These figures show that the greater war effort aiming at the overthrow of Germany had a decisive contribution from the former Soviet Union. Approximately 47 million people were killed during World War II. Germany’s surrender on May 8 did not mean the end of World War II because it was still on Asian and Pacific soil. Japan was still fighting titanically against the United States that was defeating the Japanese. In order to force the rapid and unconditional surrender of Japan, the United States decided to launch two atomic bombs: one in Hiroshima (on August 6, 1945) and another in Nagasaki (on August 9, 1945). The Japanese surrender took place on September 2, 1945.
Unfortunately, Victory Day is not properly publicized in the media in Brazil and in many countries around the world. In Brazil, only a small part of the population remembers the commemoration and registration of the almost 25,000 Brazilians who were part of the greatest war in history. Sadly, the heroic participation of Brazilian ex-combatants who have fought against Nazi-fascist oppression and tyranny and contributed to the construction of a new era of peace in the world has not been celebrated. Victory Day on 8 or 9 May should be celebrated throughout the world as one of the great events of human history because it meant the crushing of the Nazi-fascist “serpent” that flourished in Europe in the first half of the twentieth century. This event should be remembered as highly important in the history of humanity not only because it prevented the escalation of Nazi-fascism throughout the world, but also to act in the contemporary era as an important instrument of public awareness to act in the fight against Nazi-fascism, especially in the present conjuncture that is characterized by the advance of fascism in Europe, the United States and, also, in Brazil.
It is important to note that fascism and Nazism implanted during the twenties and thirties of the twentieth century was based on a strong, totalitarian state which claimed to embody the spirit of the people in the exercise of power by a single party whose authority was imposed through violence, repression and political propaganda. The fascist and Nazi leader is a figure who is above ordinary men. Mussolini was denominated like Il Duce, that derives from the Latin Dux (General) and Hitler de Fuehrer (Conductor, Guide, Leader, Boss). Both were messianic and authoritarian leaderships, with a power that was exercised unilaterally without consultation to anyone. In Germany, fascism was given the name of Nazism. This movement also had a strong racial component, which promulgated the superiority of the Aryan race and sought to exterminate Jews, Gypsies and Blacks.
Nazism was also characterized by aggressive nationalism, militarism and imperialism in the service of the ruling classes, by the cult of the chief, by anti-communism and by dictatorship. In order to put into practice its principles, the individual rights of citizens were ignored, Parliament was transformed into a simple advisory body and the political police were created, which crushed all opposition to the regime. Nazi-fascism served as a model for several other extreme right-wing dictatorships that were implanted in Europe in the period between the two World Wars, including Franco’s dictatorships in Spain and Salazar’s in Portugal, which is why nazifascism came to fit also as a right-wing totalitarian dictatorial regime.
In the contemporary era, the economic crisis of the world capitalist system that broke out in 2008 in the United States led the European Union to economic stagnation with serious political and social consequences. This crisis has given rise to the strengthening of far-right political parties in several countries. The rise of far-right parties happens in much of Europe. With Nazi-fascist or nationalist leanings, most of these parties advocate the end of the European Union, the end of the Euro, strengthening the unity and identity of countries, more radical policies against immigrants, criticizing the financial rescue of countries in crisis, are against homosexuals, abortion, liberalism and globalization, and fight what they call Islamization.
In the United States, all messages from presidential candidate Donald Trump pointed to the fact that, elected president of the Republic, fascism could be reborn in the United States. The revival of fascism under Donald Trump in the United States resulted primarily from its economic decline and the loss of its hegemony on the world stage in a very short timeframe. It should be noted that the United States is the chief executive organization of the world capital empire. In other words, it can be said that it is in the United States that the fascist state is located in defense of globalized capitalism. The US government carries out drone killings, occupies foreign countries, created and supported terrorist guerrillas such as the Islamic State. The United States government oppresses and investigates its own domestic population. It does all this for service, not for national aggrandizement, but for the service of global capital. It is a fascism different from that of old Fascism, which was based on a strong, totalitarian state which claimed to embody the spirit of the people in the exercise of power by a single party whose authority was imposed through violence, repression and propaganda politics. The current fascism in the United States has a double connotation, being nationalist in developing actions that aim to maintain global and globalist American hegemony by taking actions in defense of globalized capitalism.
In Brazil, the Bolsonaro government may lead Brazil to an unprecedented social conflagration in its history. Fascism is explicit in Bolsonaro’s discourse, which is based on the cult of order, on state violence, on authoritarian government practices, on social disregard for vulnerable and fragile groups, and on anti-communism. The danger represented by Bolsonaro lies in oppression, machismo, homophobia, racism, hatred of the poor. History tells us that once it reaches power, the fascists can destroy the last vestiges of a democratic government in Brazil. In contemporary Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro defends economic neoliberalism differently from the statism of Mussolini and Hitler, fact that does not stop to qualify it like fascist because there is not a unique formula for the fascism as some imagine. Not necessarily fascism is nationalist and statist as it was in Italy with Mussolini and in Germany with Hitler. What characterizes all fascism in all its variants is fundamentally dictatorship, racism, anti-communism, persecution of minorities, and the placing of fascist government at the service of economic and financial elites.
The Nazi-fascism that is reborn in Brazil and in the world must be crushed as happened on May 8, 1945 with the military defeat of Hitler Germany.
* Fernando Alcoforado, 79, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development by the University of Barcelona, university professor and consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is the author of 14 books addressing issues such as Globalization and Development, Brazilian Economy, Global Warming and Climate Change, The Factors that Condition Economic and Social Development, Energy in the world and The Great Scientific, Economic, and Social Revolutions that Changed the World.
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