A short article by a respected military journalist of the time, Max Werner, on how severely Nazi Germany had been beaten. Germany held the dubious distinction of being the most defeated country in all of history - until Japan's defeat three months later.
"Battles of annihilation of such dimensions never have been fought before this. This was not merely physical destruction. The entire German military machine fell apart to the last atom. The destruction of German militarism was accomplished in this war by total defeat... The defeat with all its implications has not yet penetrated into the consciousness of the average Germen. So far he has witnessed and experienced only on a local scale, in his village, town or city. He has not yet realized defeat as a national and political fact. But this realization will come very soon. The complete occupation of the entire country will clarify the situation very soon. Then a new political trend will begin."
Famed Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung wrote about the immediate psychological effect of the German defeat, and the guilt they must recognize - you can read it here.
In this 1945 Newsweek article Japan acknowledges the fatal mistake they made when they chose to embrace fascism.
Click here to read about how soundly Germany was Walloped after the First World War.
In 1923 a German cleric publicly apologized for his nation starting World War I: click here to read it.
Werner filed this column three days earlier:
One of Max Werner's books, The Great Offensive(1942) is available at Amazon.
