Archivo etiqueta «II Guerra Mundial»
By Samuel Pisar, a lawyer and the author of Of Blood and Hope (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 30/01/10):
Sixty-five years ago this week, the Soviets liberated Auschwitz, while the Americans were approaching Dachau. For a survivor of these two infernos to still be alive and well, with a new family that has resurrected for me the one I had lost, seems almost unreal. When I entered Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele’s gruesome universe at the age of 13, I measured my life expectancy in days, weeks at the most.
In the early winter of 1944, World War II was coming… Seguir leyendo
By Andrew Baker, a rabbi, director of international Jewish affairs for the American Jewish Committee (THE WASHINGTON POST, 30/01/10):
World leaders, Holocaust survivors and World War II veterans gathered at Auschwitz on Wednesday to mark the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp. Poland has long shouldered responsibility for preserving this tragic site, which has become a virtual synonym for the Holocaust. Its gas chambers and crematoria, rail platforms and endless rows of wooden barracks were evidence of the systematic and mechanized murder of European Jews that the Nazis had perfected. The ashes of over a million… Seguir leyendo
Por Andreu Jaume, editor de Lumen (EL PAÍS, 26/12/09):
En Garbo, el espía, el documental recientemente estrenado de Edmon Roch sobre Joan Pujol, alias Garbo, un burgués catalán que acabó reclutado por los servicios secretos británicos como doble agente y cuya tarea fue decisiva a la hora de intoxicar a la inteligencia nazi con falsa información sobre el desembarco de Normandía, se cita, muy de pasada, a quien fue el oficial del caso en el seno del MI5: Tomás Harris (1908-1964). Quizá la peripecia de Pujol sea demasiado compleja (hay todavía páginas de sombra en su biografía, muchos personajes difuminados… Seguir leyendo
By David P. Colley, the author of Decision at Strasbourg: Ike’s Strategic Mistake to Halt the Sixth Army Group at the Rhine in 1944 (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 23/11/09):
Sixty-Five years ago, in November 1944, the war in Europe was at a stalemate. A resurgent Wehrmacht had halted the Allied armies along Germany’s borders after its headlong retreat across northern France following D-Day. From Holland to France, the front was static — yet thousands of Allied soldiers continued to die in futile battles to reach the Rhine River.
One Allied army, however, was still on the move. The Sixth Army… Seguir leyendo
Por Jesús López-Medel, abogado del Estado (EL PERIÓDICO, 01/10/09):
Se conmemora ahora el 70° aniversario del inicio de la segunda guerra mundial. El primer acto fue la invasión alemana de la vecina Polonia en septiembre de 1939. El acto oficial, con la presencia de los dirigentes políticos europeos, tuvo por eje ese episodio militar. También muchos de los análisis realizados lo son en este registro. Sin embargo, creo que muy poco se ha hablado ahora sobre cómo se cimentó esa locura que daría lugar a 60 millones de muertos. Las acciones bélicas empezaron entonces, aunque un año antes la anexión… Seguir leyendo
Por Monika Zgustova, escritora (EL PAÍS, 18/09/09):
“Los actuales intentos, asquerosos e hipócritas, de los europeos para dar otro sentido a la II Guerra Mundial, para rebajar el papel heroico de nuestra nación en la destrucción del nazismo, y la monstruosa mentira de los europeos a la hora de comparar Alemania y la Unión Soviética en su responsabilidad por la guerra demuestran que a los europeos el nazismo les resulta más próximo que el comunismo”. Con estas palabras, llenas de intención aunque algo faltas de lógica, concluyó el moderador Viktor Kozhemyako, redactor de Pravda, el coloquio de historiadores sobre el… Seguir leyendo
By Anita Prazmowska, professor in international history at the London School of Economics (THE GUARDIAN, 01/09/09):
An apology that comes too late is likely to exacerbate rather than end a quarrel. Thus Vladimir Putin’s letter to the Poles – in which he appears to unreservedly apologise for the fact that in September 1939 the Soviet Union was allied with Nazi Germany – has not been received with either gratitude or appreciation. On the contrary, by suggesting that the Soviet Union had made its full contribution to the ultimate defeat of the common enemy, the Russian PM’s remarks have been interpreted… Seguir leyendo
Por Ángel Viñas, historiador y autor, con Fernando Sánchez, de El desplome de la República, de próxima aparición (EL PAÍS, 01/09/09):
El 1 de septiembre de 1939 es la fecha convencional del estallido del segundo conflicto mundial cuando las tropas alemanas invadieron Polonia. Y, 48 horas más tarde, Reino Unido y Francia declararon la guerra al Tercer Reich. El mundo en que vivimos es tributario de las repercusiones de la época que entonces dio comienzo.
En términos numéricos la historiografía sobre la II Guerra Mundial ha sobrepasado la generada por uno de los conflictos que le precedieron, el español, pero… Seguir leyendo
Por Hermann Tertsch (ABC, 01/09/09):
Hoy es un día perfecto para reflexionar sobre la interrogante que titula estas líneas. El día 1 de septiembre de 1939, hace setenta años, comenzaba la mayor guerra de la historia de la humanidad con el asalto a Polonia de las tropas alemanas del régimen nacionalsocialista acaudillado por Adolfo Hitler. Cuando terminó, el 14 de agosto de 1945, con la rendición del Japón imperial ante los aliados, cuatro meses antes en Europa tras la caída de Berlín, la guerra, que afectó de una forma u otra a los cinco continentes, había causado la muerte de… Seguir leyendo
Por Borja Vivanco Díaz, Doctor en Economía y licenciado en Sociología (EL CORREO DIGITAL, 01/09/09):
Cuando, hoy hace setenta años, la Segunda Guerra Mundial dio comienzo, se habían cumplido cinco meses del final de la contienda civil española. Por lo tanto, a pesar de contar con un ejército entrenado y relativamente bien armado, España no estaba en condiciones de embarcarse en un nuevo conflicto. La reconstrucción del país era la primera prioridad para el nuevo régimen político. Ahora bien, desde los primeros momentos y más aún una vez que, a lo largo de 1940, Alemania conquistaba -como si de un… Seguir leyendo
By William Rees-Mogg (THE TIMES, 31/08/09):
It is 70 years since war broke out in 1939, but historic questions remain. “Appeasement” is still a dirty word, but so is “war-monger”. President Bush repeatedly used the memory of Winston Churchill in 1940 to justify his wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Revisionist historians question whether Neville Chamberlain, the architect of the 1930s appeasement policy, had any choice. One witness was Sir Nevile Henderson, who published his account in Failure of a Mission.
Henderson was Neville Chamberlain’s Ambassador to Germany in the period immediately before the outbreak of the Second World War. He… Seguir leyendo
By Anne Applebaum (THE WASHINGTON POST, 30/08/09):
Seventy years ago next week — at 4:45 a.m. Sept. 1, 1939, to be precise — the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein began to shell the Polish military base near Gdansk. For Germans, for Poles, and for the British and French, who immediately declared war on Germany, that was the beginning of World War II. The Soviet Union, having signed a secret agreement with Nazi Germany, did not declare war but was itself preparing to invade Poland and the Baltic states. Which it did, two weeks later, on Sept. 17.
None of these basic facts… Seguir leyendo
By George Stevens Jr., a filmmaker, author and playwright who received the Distinguished Advocate Award this month from the Anne Frank Foundation (THE WASHINGTON POST, 30/06/09):
Anne Frank would have celebrated her 80th birthday this month. The diary she wrote as a teenager in a cramped Amsterdam attic lives in the hearts of readers across the world. Her story has been a continuing inspiration to many and made her one of the most enduring voices of World War II.
I became connected to her story 50 years ago, when my father asked me to be associate producer of “The Diary… Seguir leyendo
By John Pilger (THE GUARDIAN, 06/08/08):
When I first went to Hiroshima in 1967, the shadow on the steps was still there. It was an almost perfect impression of a human being at ease: legs splayed, back bent, one hand by her side as she sat waiting for a bank to open. At a quarter past eight on the morning of August 6, 1945, she and her silhouette were burned into the granite. I stared at the shadow for an hour or more, then walked down to the river and met a man called Yukio, whose chest was still etched… Seguir leyendo
By Mindy Kotler, the director of Asia Policy Point, a research center that studies Asian regional security (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 26/05/08):
Lester Tenney, an 87-year-old veteran of World War II, plans to travel to Japan today to seek a meeting with the prime minister and an apology for the hardship and misery he and other American prisoners of war endured in that country. For a variety of reasons, beginning with the State Department’s stance on the issue, it is an apology that he is unlikely to receive.
In the fall of 1940, Mr. Tenney enlisted in the 192nd Tank… Seguir leyendo