World War II

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51. On the twenty-second day of the twenty-second month f the war, the ruler of Germany ordered his generals to attack Russia. And his generals and his advisers obeyed. They had not seen the symptoms of his darkened mind. And they led their armies and attacked Russia. And on that day, the day when his armies stormed into Russia, the man called Hitler saw that he had miscalculated and that his enemy in the West, Britain, would never make peace with him. For a man named Churchill had risen to be the first among the British. He had been suspicious of the growing power of the German throughout all the time that the rulers of Britain had favoured him. And when the power of the German became mighty, Churchill recognised the symptoms. Britain might indeed have made peace with the German, had the leader who had supported him still been at the head of the British people. But, when events turned against Britain and France in the war, the British people deposed the man and made Churchill their leader. And on the selfsame day that the German attacked Russia, Churchill and his country made an alliance with Russia.



52. Once again, victory came to the ruler of Germany as he began warring against Russia. Faced with the German armies accustomed to victory, the massed Russian troops withdrew to the interior of their huge country. This was the way of Russia now, as it had been some one hundred and twenty-nine years earlier, when a mighty hero of wars had invaded their lands. This was their way of waging war: they confronted the masses of raging invaders, not with their army, but with the vast territory of their land. The enemy lines would then grow thinner and thinner as they stretched out deep into the huge domain. Russia had more troops than the Germans, but its weapons were weaker and its arsenal of arms and equipment was much smaller. In the end, the battle lines of the Germans and their associates facing the Russians stretched from the Polar Sea to the foot of the Caucasian Mountains. This line was almost double of what it had been at the start of the battle between the Germans and the Russians; then, it had stretched from the Baltic to the Westerns shores of the Black Sea. Now, it was thinner than it had ever been.



53. The Russians also had a second weapon of defence against all who penetrated their land. And that was the icy cold of the winter in their country. It was with this that they had defeated the great warrior who had invaded their country one hundred and twenty-nine years earlier. And they knew how to drag out the fighting until this time, too, the icy winter would strike the enemy. The German was no heroic warrior, even though he commanded millions of troops. And ten thousand German soldiers died of the cold and of exhaustion in that winter and many tens of thousands fell in battle against the Russians. Many tens of Russians also died in battle and hundreds of thousands were carried away to Germany and to Austria as slaves.



54. In the twenty-eighth month of the war, the war that the man Hitler had unleashed spread once again, involving almost the whole world. A powerful nation joined the camp of the ruler of Germany and another powerful nation joined the camp of Britain and Russia. On the seventh day of the month, the people of Japan, in the East of Asia, attacked the people of the United States of America. Japan went to war against Britain at the same time. It held back from an attack on Russia. The people of Japan were altogether dazzled by the man called Hitler. They were in no way able to recognise his symptoms, for they knew very little about the Jewish people or their history. Japan had less insight in these matters than the nations of Europe and America. It believed that the German was a mighty warrior with whom it was good to have an alliance. And although Japan was also an enemy of Russia, it did not attack Russia. It did not wish to fight many enemies at the same time.



55. Japan was a powerful country on land and sea. It had a great fighting navy and mighty armies. Four years earlier, Japan’s armies had thrown themselves against the vast empire of China, which covered more than one quarter of Asia, from the middle of Asia to its coasts in the South and East. For Japan was a warring nation and it sought to swallow the vast Empire of China. And the people of Japan believed that no one would be able to stop them in their conquest of China. They saw how the man called Hitler had become all-powerful in Europe, how all the nations in Europe and America watched only him. And Japan relied on the power and the greatness of the German. Japan became his friend and supported him even before the war in Europe. And it was because the nations of Europe held their breath, watching only the German, that the war against China had been possible.



56. The Japanese warships and their aeroplanes made a sudden attack on a section of the American Navy and destroyed it. For the Japanese believed that America, allied to the British, would hinder their conquest of China, once the war in Europe was over. Therefore the Japanese thought that this was an opportune moment to go to war against America and Britain.



57. Now all the great powers of the world were at war because they had not recognised the symptoms of the darkened mind of the man called Hitler, or because they had closed their minds to those symptoms. The principal nations on one side were Germany, Italy and Japan; and they had their vassals. The principal nations on the other side were Britain, America, Russia and China. And together with Britain there fought the nations of the British Empire across the seas. France and many European nations were under the German yoke and were obliged to help the German. And almost all of mankind in almost every part of the world was embattled on account of the man whose mind was darkened, a darkness that had first manifested itself in a senseless hatred to the death of the Jews. Every other hatred of his was a hatred common between factions. A hatred that is common can be pacified and controlled more easily than one that is senseless.



58. The United States of America was the most powerful nation on earth. And the first man in America at that time was a man called Roosevelt. His eyes were sharper than those of anyone else; they were able to see the symptoms in the man called Hitler. But even Roosevelt did not see the full significance or the dangers at a time when this would have mattered. He did feel anger at the German’s shameful deeds against the Jews, at first. But the German had many friends among the people of America, and Roosevelt, the leader of America, did not, in the name of his nation, threaten the German on account of the Jews. For it was a rule among the nations, not to threaten a people on account of its deeds within its own lands, however shameful the deeds. So he, too, spoke no word in the name of his people, about the persecution of the Jews. Nor did he open the doors of his country to many of those among them in distress. But he instructed his envoy in Germany to work secretly to lighten the awful suffering of the Jews a little. His ambassador, however, achieved nothing. Not by the weight of one grain of sand did he manage to lighten the burden of suffering of the Jews. And he soon ceased his efforts on their behalf. However, the heart of the first man in America was with the enemies of the ruler of Germany, with Britain. And this was so, long before Japan’s warships attacked the American fleet. Roosevelt secretly prepared his country for war as an ally of Britain. And he hoped to be able to strengthen Britain if the Germans did not set foot on the British Isles. And he rulers of Britain knew this. And the Germans did not set foot on their islands.



59. When the ruler of Germany unleashed his war against Britain, France and Poland, his darkened mind made him deride and mock America and its leader, without any reason. And this had given substance to the thinking of Roosevelt. When Japan attacked the United States of America, the ruler of Germany likewise declared war on that country.



60. The armies of the ruler of Germany that had been threatening Britain now stormed into Russia and came close to Moscow, its capital. And wherever the German soldiers and murderers penetrated, they seized thousands of Jews. And the hunt for Jews, unable to save themselves from the murderous German troops, became even more terrible and bloody than before. For in Russia, there lived as many Jews as in Poland, some six million lived in the two countries altogether. The Germans penetrated into many cities of Poland and of Russia, both large and small. In many places, the Jews made up one third, one half, even three quarters of the population. Like wild beasts, with murderous fury, the Germans threw themselves on the unarmed millions of Jews. And there began the greatest, the most horrendous persecution that the Jews had ever experienced in the whole course of their history.