Human Evolution : The March and Flight - Part II
The Forest from the Trees
The Blitzkrieg of violence perpetrated by the Third Reich and its Axis cohorts was misnamed by armchair generals.It was not blitzkrieg (sea, air and land warfare) that overwhelmed France, it was a violation of an international agreement of neutrality and a radically different and highly controversial employment of armor moving single-file through a heavily wooded forest, the Ardennes, that bypassed the Maginot Line
mentality of France.
It worked.
DeGaulle , who had conceived of the employment of armored mobility in warfare, called such ideas as the Maginot Line “monuments to human stupidity.”
With its invasion of France, the Third Reich sublimated the the culture of Goethe, Beethoven, Schrodinger, Heisenberg and Einstein, art, music and faith - until the rescue from despair by the intervention and extraordinary Financial Logistics of America.
The March
Europe’s conflagrations and the horrors of Communism as described by Dostoevsky; (Those subjected to communism’s depravity will scream for their God) did not stop its advance across Europe, Asia and the world.
Art, Music, Literature
The Russian faith exhorted in the climactic ringing of bells after the cannonade in Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, celebrating the pivotal Battle of Borodino, contrasts with a Europe which fell into the despair of national socialism and populist fascism and Nazism. The invasion and occupation of France under this pall has a great deal to do with the Philosophy of Despair expressed by Ernest Hemingway in For Whom the Bell Tolls, John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath and Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, Camus and other writers on human existence and existentialism. Whereas the despondency and despair of Sartre’s (No Exit; Huits Clos; Being and Nothingness; L’Etre et Le Neant) represented a despairing and dark side of human existence and the absurdity of life, other existentialists had a different view.
Existentialism reflects humanity’s continued resort to violence, war and occupation as solutions. The equally powerful Christian Existentialism of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Jacques Maritain and Albert Schweitzer called a Reverence for life. Christian existentialism of Bergson and de Chardin recognizes what Andrew van Heerden describes as the "duality" of the human character and intellect. In brief, van Heerden writes;
“Intellect, the culture-creating part of the human mind is incessantly at work. However, ingenuity, like all human attributes, is misused at least as frequently as it is deployed to do good. “Directed by hubris, it is dangerous; guided by love, it becomes inspirational. Understanding our creative ability demands a deep awareness of this dual potential. It is our great advantage in the on-going task to procreate and prosper, yet its quality and application are inevitably determined by character and culture."
Rooted in paleontology and deeply affected by his assisting in the discovery of China Man;
de Chardin’s existentialism complements Darwin’s conception of human evolution.
On the March
Kristallnacht and the Holocaust climaxed Germany’s march to devolution. This march of horror hit America at the Battle of the Bulge, the massacres at Malmedy in Belgium and Boves, Italy; episodes of war and crime which starred the war criminal Joachim Peiper.
The Ukrainian Holodomor (The Starving Time);
evidenced the horrors of Russia’s communism as did Mao’s Long March in China. Mao conducted a "re-education" program which cost an estimated 40 million lives.
The Salt March in India, led by Gandhi, is reminiscent of the marches to human evolution.
The marches of re-education in the US also have a price;
When Joachim Peiper was convicted in the US of war crimes, the death penalty was commuted because of
McCarthyism and the legal failure regarding the atrocities of Joachim Peiper
et alia for the massacre of some 200 American troops at Malmedy (Battle of the Bulge) and failure to hold responsible the American leaders for their failure in troop leadership, this travesty of law and justice because of sympathy with evil and the McCarthyism that represents the devolution of both American culture and law.
Peiper and some of his men were tried in the US and because of the intervention of Senator McCarthy
and cultural sympathizers with Germans and Germany, in the US Midwest, their death sentences were commuted. After 12 years in prison, Peiper was released and worked for Volkswagen and Porsche, and in France as a translator, where he was assassinated after his identity was discovered.
After its devastation, Europe rebuilt its infrastructure, funded by the Marshall Plan which provided loans and grants.
Financial Logistics
Berlin Blockade
Wikipedia: The Berlin Blockade (24 June 1948 – 12 May 1949) was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. The Soviets offered to drop the blockade if the Western Allies withdrew the newly introduced Deutsche Mark from West Berlin.
My Comment: The Deutsche Mark was instrumental in creating a single Germany in the face of communism. In the creation of one America (E Pluribus Unum), Alexander Hamilton realized when every US state had its own currency, that the creation of one currency, a currency that reflected our common beliefs (In God We Trust), the US Dollar, would unite our country.
Aerial Envelopment
When Russia surrounded Berlin and intended to starve it as it had what was then the Ukraine, the American financial logistics brilliance devised EDI; Electronic Data Interchange, to supply Berlin with everything it needed to survive.
Berlin Airlift
Wikipedia:
Date
24 June 1948 – 12 May 1949 (323 days)
Location
Result
Blockade lifted
• West Berlin remains under the control of Western Allies
Belligerents
46px-Flag_of_the_Soviet_Union_(1924–1955).svg.png.webp
46px-Flag_of_the_United_States_(1912-1959).svg.png.webp
46px-Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom.svg.png.webp
Supported by
45px-Flag_of_France_(1794–1815,_1830–1958).svg.png.webp
46px-Flag_of_Canada_(1921–1957).svg.png.webp
46px-Flag_of_Australia_(converted).svg.png.webp
46px-Flag_of_New_Zealand.svg.png.webp
45px-Flag_of_South_Africa_(1928–1994).svg.png.webp
Commanders and leaders
46px-Flag_of_the_Soviet_Union.svg.png.webp
46px-Flag_of_the_United_States_(1912-1959).svg.png.webp
46px-Flag_of_the_United_States_(1912-1959).svg.png.webp
46px-Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom.svg.png.webp
Casualties and losses
none
In aircraft accidents:
39 British and 31 Americans killed
15 German civilians killed
The Western Allies organised the Berlin Airlift (also known as Berliner Luftbrücke, literally "Berlin Air Bridge" in German) from 26 June 1948 to 30 September 1949 to carry supplies to the people of West Berlin, a difficult feat given the size of the city's population.[1][2]
The Americans and British then began a joint operation in support of the entire city. Aircrews from the American, British, French,[3] Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, and South African[4]:338 air forces flew over 200,000 sorties in one year, providing to the West Berliners necessities such as fuel and food, with the original plan being to lift 3,475 tons of supplies daily. By the spring of 1949, that number was often met twofold, with the peak daily delivery totalling 12,941 tons.[5]
On 12 May 1949, the USSR lifted the blockade of West Berlin, although for a time the Americans and British continued to supply the city by air anyway because they were worried that the Soviets were simply going to resume the blockade and were only trying to disrupt western supply lines. The Berlin Airlift officially ended on 30 September 1949 after fifteen months. The US Air Force had delivered 1,783,573 tons (76.40% of total) and the RAF 541,937 tons (23.30% of total),[nb 1] totalling 2,334,374 tons, nearly two-thirds of which was coal, on 278,228 flights to Berlin.
The C-47s and C-54s together flew over 92,000,000 miles (148,000,000 km) in the process, almost the distance from Earth to the Sun.[6] At the height of the Airlift, one plane reached West Berlin every thirty seconds.[7]
Seventeen American and eight British aircraft crashed during the operation.[8] A total of 101 fatalities were recorded as a result of the operation, including 40 Britons and 31 Americans,[7] mostly due to non-flying accidents.
The Berlin Blockade served to highlight the competing ideological and economic visions for postwar Europe and played a major role in drawing West Germany into the NATO orbit several years later in 1955.
Poland
The march of solidarity and Roman Catholicism confronted communism in Poland. The peaceful and prayerful marches led by Karol Wojtyla (Pope John-Paul I) and
and Lech Walesa;
catalyzed the liberation of Poland from communism.
Update
The March of Financial Logistics Continues with Part III
Clean Energy Entrepreneur at WindRING
4yGreat article. We need the Marshal Plan now.
Network System Engineer IT Investment Banking. American Society of RadiologicTechnologists ASRT Member Number 710911
4yThank you for sharing Mr. William Laraque.