Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1945-05-08
The End'in Europe


Now, after almost six years of the
most terrible warfare in history, the
guns are silent, the bombs have
stopped falling, the terror and tor
ment are at an end, and we have
victory in Europe.
For week or more, we have seen
this great day rushing toward us.
. We have seen Germany disintegrat-
ing, hour by hour, and have passed
through such a swift succession of
climaxes that yesterdays final sur
render at Rheims seems only little
less anticlimactic than the formal
proclamation of victory today.
Yet, though this profoundly his
toric moment thus does not come as
an emotionally electrifying surprise,
it is point in time which, after five
years, eight months and six days of
weeping, dying, desolation of the
spirit and almost unimaginable de-
struction and violence, must fill
hundreds of millions of hearts with
a deep sense of relief and quiet re-
joicing and with feeling of prayer
full thanksgiving to God.
Measured in terms of travail,
treasure, heartbreak and blood, the
road that has led to this Victory Day
has been the longest, the hardest,
the bitterest and the costliest that
men have ever had to travel. Hitler
and the nihiliSts of Berlin were the
architects of it. Powerful in their
evil, and arming Germany on an in
comparable scale, they sought moth
ing less than mastery of Europe and
the world, and to this end. having
acquired as much as they could
through diplomatic treachery, they
struck first at Poland. And after
that, one by one, Denmark and Nor
way fell, and Holland and Belgium
and France fell. And then Britain
stood alone, and Mussolini dragged
Italy into the war, and Yugoslavia
and Greece fell. After that 1t was
RuSsia's turn, and finally, with ia
pan leading the way, the Axis struck
at America
The broad outlines of the story are
remembered by all of us. Unforget-
table are those dark hours when it
seemed that nothing could save our
free world. Unforgettable are the
steadfastness, the faith. the courage,
the sacrifice of the Allies in their
gradual triumph over immense dan
gers and adversities. Unforgettable
the British air force in the days of
the blitz. Unforgettable the valor
of the Russians. Unforgettable the
miracle" of American production.
Unforgettable the long fight against
the U-boats and the mounting of our
Allied aerial offensive from Britain.
Unforgettable the battles of Ell
Alamein and Stalingrad and the in
vasions of North Africa, Italy and
Normandy. Unforgettable the last
crushing blows of the war in Europe,
the last days which saw Mussolini
and Hitler both destroyed and all
their works destroyed with them.
And unforgettable, above all, are
the legions of Allied troops who have
died to make this day possible. We
can rejoice, we can lift up our hearts,
in this shining hour of victory, but
we cannot give way to an unre-
strained mood of eXultation and
celebration. Even if we wanted to,
we could not do that, for we are kept
from it not merely by our awareness
of the continuing struggle against
Japan but more especially because
the voices of the multitudinous dead
the voices of the thousands and
the tens of thousands and the hun
dreds of thousands of young men
who have fallen in battle-speak in
sistently to us. The end of the war
in Europe, they tell us, marks but
the beginning of task in which all
peoples and nations are charged
with a terrible responsibility II the
task of building a good and lasting
peace. And If we fail in this, they
say, what good will their dying have
accomplished and what hope can
there be for civilization?
The long night is ended in Europe,
and in the not-too- distant future it
should be ended in Asia, too, but the
dawn coming up is full of tremen-
dous challenges, and unless we meet
them with wisdom and resolution,
the victory we hail today, with all its
bright promises, may turn to ashes
within a generation. The dead of
the war have left us with an oppor-
tunity and a duty to establish an
enduring peace. Let it not be said
of us in history that we broke faith
with them and failed.