On May 8th, 1945, the Third Reich surrendered. Our local paper recalled an amazing event. Parallels?

[DFW]

3. Gauland is a despised POS here in Germany who is contending with splits in his own extremist party

It is true that May 8th is not a holiday here, and there is some justification for that. It would be sort of like the Japanese making August 6th a holiday. It is a day of remembrance--not one for the instigating nation to celebrate, but rather to contemplate.

World War II was, in part, made possible by unnecessary humiliation of Germany by the victorious allies after World War I. Marshall realized this, and instead, after World War II, decided it was smarter to make a new Germany from scratch rather than put bandaids on the old one.

As a side note, a classmate of my younger daughter once told me, over 20 years ago, that the worst thing the Nazis ever did to her (born in 1985, remember) was to make it impossible for her to ever feel proud to be a German. This, I thought, was an incredibly insightful observation from a 14 year old whose parents weren't even born when the war ended. The emotional wound cut very deep.