November/December 2004

A NEW EUROPE AT NORMANDY

by Thomas E. Ambrogi

As seventeen world leaders and thousands of international guests gathered this year on the beaches of Normandy to celebrate the sixtieth memorial of the D-Day landings of June 6th, 1944, several complex dramas were being played out. By far the most startling among them was an extraordinary pledge of reconciliation announced by the leaders of France and Germany. Beyond the traditional paeans of thanks and praise for the valor of the Allied forces, the real story this year was a declaration of new relationships between Germany and France.

The power and promise for peace in that exchange went almost unnoticed in the international media. But if ever the neocons in Washington had ears to hear it, we just might move from an imperial future of endless war after preventive war to a world that is peacefully interconnected and interdependent.

The center-stage drama at Normandy, of course, was to summon up once again in blessing the valor of all the Allied troops who fought and died in Operation Overlord, what Eisenhower called the "great and noble undertaking."   Forty-five hundred ships crossed the Channel in the first storm-swept wave of that vast armada, and more than 150,000 troops landed on the five beaches or parachuted onto French soil. Forty-five hundred people died on the first day.

At Collville-sur-Mer, on the high bluff above Omaha Beach, scene of the bloodiest battle of all, my wife and I laid flowers on a grave in the American cemetery, where nearly 10,000 American soldiers lie under perfect rows of brilliant white marble crosses and Stars of David, silently whispering their call of "Never Again" to all who would come and listen. It is a sacred grove deep in the green softness of Normandy's forgetting meadows.

A background drama was an urgent awareness that we are running out of voices to remind us of what we must be sure to remember. A thinning line of veterans could be seen everywhere, most now hobbling and hunched in the autumn of their lives, still carrying the pain of what they saw, often sharing it in the tears they sobbed along "their" beach. Most will be gone by the seventieth anniversary of the landings in 2014. So this ceremony was a passing of the torch.

But there are differing texts for the message being passed with the torch. One concerns the Americans and the French, and another concerns the Germans and the rest of the world.

During the major events on June 6th, observers were watching how George Bush would relate to Jacques Chirac, given their still-seething tensions over Iraq. The French media had reported how, at a state dinner in Paris two nights earlier, President Chirac had sharply, and barely diplomatically, taken offense at President Bush's equating of what the Allies did at Normandy with what the US is doing today in Iraq, saying that he would rather not hear that said again in France.

At the American cemetery at Collville, Chirac reminded Bush that the values of the wartime Allies are "still symbolized and guaranteed today by the Charter of the United Nations." He referred to June 6th as "the day hope was reborn," and spoke of a wind of peace blowing over Europe. The Guardian reported that Bush, "in a cool, well-delivered speech," warmly received Chirac's welcome and said, with a barely concealed barb, "America honors all the liberators who fought here in the noblest of causes, and America would do it again—for our friends."

But far more important than these crackling sparks between France and the United States was an exchange that afternoon at the Peace Memorial in nearby Caen, this time between Jacques Chirac and the German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder.

It was the first time in sixty years that the Germans had ever been invited there. Gerhard Schroeder was born only in 1944. He has no personal memories of the Third Reich or of Hitler's Wehrmacht, and he made it clear that he was speaking for a new generation of Germans. His words and the response they evoked from Jacques Chirac created the most memorable event of those remarkable few days. Although they didn't receive wide coverage, their two eloquent speeches, each no more than ten minutes long, deserve to be closely studied in every history that will be written of our times. A few excerpts here will capture the emotion of the occasion and the heart of each declaration.

Standing at President Chirac's side, Chancellor Schroeder spoke first.

Today, sixty years ago, Caen and Normandy were the scene of endless suffering and tens of thousands of victims. But they were also the place of military courage to free Europe. France's memories of June 6, 1944 are different from Germany's. But they all end in a common conviction: we want peace.

We in Germany know who caused the war. We know our responsibility for history and we take it seriously....

The soldiers' cemeteries and the scars of both world wars have given the people of Europe—especially the Germans—an enduring duty to resist racism, anti-Semitism, and totalitarian ideologies.... Europe has learned its history, and we Germans are not going to suppress it. Europe's citizens and politicians are responsible for ensuring that war-making, war crimes, and terrorism have no chance....

No one will ever forget the twelve years of Hitler's rule. My generation grew up in its shadow. My family only found the grave of my father, who fell in Romania, four years ago. I never had the chance to get to know my father.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is not the old Germany of those dark years that I represent here. My country has found its way back into the circle of civilized communities. It was a long path to a successful and stable democracy. We look in great sorrow on the battlefields of Europe. We are grateful that France and Germany today stand closer to each other than ever before. Out of nationalistic madness, the European partnership was born. Let us this day use these memories to further our work for peace.

We want a united, peaceful Europe that takes its responsibility for peace and justice on its own continent and in the world seriously. That is our hope. There was also hope at the beginning of the German-French friendship. Trust and confidence are today its hallmarks. Those who sixty years ago were robbed of a happier life, deserve our remembrance, our deepest respect. Your death was not in vain. We live in peace and freedom. And for that we thank you. Our promise is: we will not forget the victims.

Deeply moved, President Chirac then responded.

Sixty years have passed, but neither you nor I have forgotten those long hours when the essentials of the destiny of Europe and of the world were played out. You are there today. You represent Germany and the German people. It is a moment of very great emotion.

The landings at Normandy were the bloody confrontation of thousands of combatants, Allied soldiers and German soldiers. But the 6th of June, 1944 marks above all the rebirth of liberty and democracy on a European continent that had been oppressed beneath the yoke of Nazi ideology and its deadly madness....

The European idea and the projects that incarnate it were in reality born right here.... We could not have endured so much suffering and destruction in vain. We owed it to our dead to give meaning to their sacrifice, by resolutely setting out upon the only path that would ensure peace in Europe: that of reconciliation between our two countries, between our two great peoples....

Your presence here gives witness, once again, to the long and patient work of reconciliation....It is the creation in Paris of the European Coal and Iron Community. It is the entry of Germany into the Atlantic Alliance. It is the Élysée Treaty sealing the Franco-German reconciliation and creating the framework of cooperation between our two countries. It is General de Gaulle received in triumph in Germany only several weeks after the memorable visit of Konrad Adenauer in France. It is Helmut Kohl and François Mitterand, hand in hand, before the memorial at Verdun. It was last year at Versailles, a place where so many resentments could have been born—the fraternal reunion of our two Parliaments.

You take upon yourself the memory of Germany. You incarnate it in a new springtime. You were born when hope was being reborn. You belong to this generation, born in the ruins, which has affirmed itself in its will to construct a new country, a model democracy, in fidelity to the universal values of liberty and the rights of all persons....

Our ceremony today gives witness before the world that there is no conflict, however profound and painful, that cannot leave room one day for dialogue and understanding. To those who confront one another in the endless night of hatred and resentment, our reconciliation offers a genuine hope. Better still, it offers a choice—that of boldness, of courage, and of patience. There is always a possible path toward peace. Together, the German and French peoples have chosen to bear this message....

Our conviction is that a strong Europe will contribute to the stability of the world and will give a new élan to transatlantic relationships. It is by its engagement in the service of peace and of solidarity that Europe will be faithful to the memory of all those who have fallen here in the name of liberty....

This peace memorial, where we are reunited, reminds us that war is only destruction, suffering, and tears. But war also teaches us the complete price of peace and reconciliation, of liberty and democracy—this peace and this reconciliation, this liberty and this democracy that you incarnate today, Mr. Chancellor, by your presence, here, in France, on this beautiful land of Normandy.

On this day of remembrance and of hope, French women and French men receive you more than ever as a friend. They receive you as a brother.

The Frenchman then reached out and gave the German a great bear hug, to popping flashbulbs and ringing cheers and sustained applause from the many nations represented. It was a class act. The calm and measured dignity of these two thoughtful leaders, with a gentle style that fitted so great an occasion, brought many, including this observer, close to tears. There was no playing to the balconies, just a brief and deeply sincere statement of commitment, in the name of each of their peoples, that there shall never again be war between France and Germany.

It is hard to appreciate all at once the historic significance of this event. The ghosts of more than two centuries of battlefield upon battlefield appear in the smoky mists: of Napoleon and his legions, of the Franco-Prussian War, of World War I, of World War II. A spark of genuine hope and possibility leapt out at Normandy, in an otherwise dark and desperate time. The spark must be passed on, until it becomes a new flame of possible reconciliation and peace, however formidable the obstacles.

At Normandy, Schroeder had earlier remarked: "The post-war period is finally over." He was surely right. Donald Rumsfeld and the covey of neocons drumming the drums of American Empire have sneered that France and Germany are the "old Europe," tired, obsolete, irrelevant. They were surely wrong. A French columnist, commenting in Financial Times on how US unilateralism is fraying old alliances, remarked that "an American Rome is paying less and less heed to a European Athens."

It is painful to see how the United States is clearly the odd nation out as a new Europe emerges—even if no one in the Bush administration seems to understand that, or even care. The arrogant threat of imperial pre-emptive military power is totally out of step when France and Germany and Europe are working toward ever greater European integration, trying to minimize conflict wherever possible.

The inhabiting spirits of two cemeteries symbolize how far Europe and the United States have come to diverge. On a colonnade over the American cemetery at Collville are the words: "This embattled shore, portal of freedom, is forever hallowed by the ideals, the valor and the sacrifices of our fellow countrymen." The clear implication is that, honoring with pride all that our sons and daughters have done in wars of "liberation," we would do it again—for our friends.

The German cemetery at La Cambe, off the main road to Caen, is a very different place. Twice as large, 20,000 German soldiers lie buried there beneath squat black crosses. In their tranquil meadow of trees and flowers, they blare out another message loud and clear. A video extols the need for reconciliation and understanding. Photos of recent wars around the world accompany a statement that there have been 40 million victims of war since 1945. Their message is that war is indeed "only destruction, suffering, and tears." It is cruelty, stupid, a terrible waste, a failure. The only quote to be seen is from Albert Schweitzer, philosopher and physician: "The soldiers' graves are the greatest preachers of peace."

At the heart of our tortured transatlantic relations today, and indeed of US relations with the whole world, is the profound question of whether war is a necessity or a failure. Americans have blindly, and instinctively, chosen to declare unending "war" on terrorism and on all whom they define as "evil." The new Europeans are saying they do not want American blood shed on their behalf. The path to peace for them lies not through retribution, but through reconciliation, and they really take seriously what Jacques Chirac said to the Germans at Normandy: "To those who confront one another in the endless night of hatred and resentment, our reconciliation offers a genuine hope."

If the driving force of US foreign policy should ever turn from aggressive militarism to international diplomacy, from isolated unilateralism to creative collaboration toward a peaceful future, there is much to work with in the New Europe.  

 Thomas E. Ambrogi is an interfaith theologian, a human rights advocate, and an organizer on a wide range of international development issues, with an earlier history as a Jesuit priest and a university professor of theology and the applied social sciences. He lives at Pilgrim Place, an active community of retired church professionals in Claremont, California . He is currently speaking widely on the American policy of empire and its impact on peacemaking; nuclear weapons development; and issues of economic globalization.

©2004 Fellowship of Reconciliation