Europe Defends Her Civilization from Bolshevism
Poster from German-occupied France with the caption “L’Europe défend sa civilisation plusieurs fois millénaire contre le bolchevisme” translating to “Europe defends it’s millenium-old civilization from Bolshevism“, referring to the titanic struggle which was underway on the Eastern Front between Germany and her allies against the Soviet Union. As a symbol of common European heritage, the Greek goddess of warfare, Athena, is depicted standing tall against the endless tide of red hordes setting themselves upon Europe.
There existed at the time a pervasive and genuine fear of communist encroachment on Europe, with many perceiving the Soviet Union to be an existential threat to European civilization. Indeed, the postwar would see numerous Eastern European countries subjugated by Moscow as satellite states, characterized by political repression, rampant corruption and economic stagnation, the effects of which are still felt in Eastern Europe to this day. Across Europe, countless volunteers offered their lives to fight alongside the Germans, not to court favor with the Nazi administration or out of any treacherous intent (as Axis collaborators are typically portrayed), but in fact quite the contrary. The majority of these foreign volunteers rather saw the fight against communism to be a patriotic duty, not just for the continued existence of their respective countries but for European civilization as a whole and answered the German call to arms accordingly. German or not, those resisting the red tide in the east found themselves united in resolve as Europeans of common heritage, with a shared understanding that the war would determine the fate of their entire continent. Hence, many foreigners considered Germany’s struggle against the Soviet Union also their own, with the German undertaking in the east coming to be viewed as a matter of collective European responsibility, acquiring Pan-European overtones and termed the ‘Crusade Against Communism’. This is in reference to the medieval crusades, during which a divinely ordained military campaign rallied kings and men alike from all corners of feudal Europe, united in faith.
As decorated war hero and SS-Standartenführer Leon Degrelle from Belgium would write of his comrades in his memoirs:
“They died out there, in countless numbers, not for government officials in Berlin, but for their old countries, gilded by the centuries, and for their common fatherland, Europe, the Europe of Virgil and Ronsard, the Europe of Erasmus and Nietzsche, of Raphael and Dürer, the Europe of St. Ignatius and St. Theresa, the Europe of Frederick the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte.”
Such first-hand accounts offer invaluable insight into the war and its essence, allowing us to shape a more nuanced historiographical understanding of the Eastern Front. Such holistic analyses that take into account the ineffable zeitgeists of the era in tandem with concurrent ongoings succeed in humanizing history, producing an intrinsic shift in how we perceive its actors. In this case, numerous primary sources including the above, not only renders obsolete, but transcends, the superficial mainstream narrative offered of this pivotal historical event, in which the conflict is defined solely in terms of German aggression; a mere nationalistic land grab orchestrated at the behest of a few high-ranking officials in Berlin. This is an incomplete fragment of the truth.
Due to this recruitment effort, the Waffen-SS ‘Charlemagne’ Brigade would be formed by Frenchmen and make a valiant last stand at the Reich Chancellery, where it’s members would destroy 108 Soviet tanks in the process. Indeed, the last defenders in the area of Hitler’s Führerbunker complex were to be these Frenchmen. Eugene Vaulot, a 21-year-old Parisian who volunteered to partake in the defense of Berlin, knocked out 6 Soviet tanks on the 30th of April above the bunker complex where Hitler would take his own life on the very same day. This anecdote confirms the notion that Germany’s war in the East truly was recognized as a pan-European crusade against communism.
Several versions of this poster are known to exist in various languages, each distributed accordingly throughout Axis-occupied Europe.
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Poster from German-occupied France with the caption “L’Europe défend sa civilisation plusieurs fois millénaire contre le bolchevisme” translating to “Europe defends it’s millenium-old civilization from Bolshevism“, referring to the titanic struggle which was underway on the Eastern Front between Germany and her allies against the Soviet Union. As a symbol of common European heritage, the Greek goddess of warfare, Athena, is depicted standing tall against the endless tide of red hordes setting themselves upon Europe.
There existed at the time a pervasive and genuine fear of communist encroachment on Europe, with many perceiving the Soviet Union to be an existential threat to European civilization. Indeed, the postwar would see numerous Eastern European countries subjugated by Moscow as satellite states, characterized by political repression, rampant corruption and economic stagnation, the effects of which are still felt in Eastern Europe to this day. Across Europe, countless volunteers offered their lives to fight alongside the Germans, not to court favor with the Nazi administration or out of any treacherous intent (as Axis collaborators are typically portrayed), but in fact quite the contrary. The majority of these foreign volunteers rather saw the fight against communism to be a patriotic duty, not just for the continued existence of their respective countries but for European civilization as a whole and answered the German call to arms accordingly. German or not, those resisting the red tide in the east found themselves united in resolve as Europeans of common heritage, with a shared understanding that the war would determine the fate of their entire continent. Hence, many foreigners considered Germany’s struggle against the Soviet Union also their own, with the German undertaking in the east coming to be viewed as a matter of collective European responsibility, acquiring Pan-European overtones and termed the ‘Crusade Against Communism’. This is in reference to the medieval crusades, during which a divinely ordained military campaign rallied kings and men alike from all corners of feudal Europe, united in faith.
As decorated war hero and SS-Standartenführer Leon Degrelle from Belgium would write of his comrades in his memoirs:
“They died out there, in countless numbers, not for government officials in Berlin, but for their old countries, gilded by the centuries, and for their common fatherland, Europe, the Europe of Virgil and Ronsard, the Europe of Erasmus and Nietzsche, of Raphael and Dürer, the Europe of St. Ignatius and St. Theresa, the Europe of Frederick the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte.”
Such first-hand accounts offer invaluable insight into the war and its essence, allowing us to shape a more nuanced historiographical understanding of the Eastern Front. Such holistic analyses that take into account the ineffable zeitgeists of the era in tandem with concurrent ongoings succeed in humanizing history, producing an intrinsic shift in how we perceive its actors. In this case, numerous primary sources including the above, not only renders obsolete, but transcends, the superficial mainstream narrative offered of this pivotal historical event, in which the conflict is defined solely in terms of German aggression; a mere nationalistic land grab orchestrated at the behest of a few high-ranking officials in Berlin. This is an incomplete fragment of the truth.
Due to this recruitment effort, the Waffen-SS ‘Charlemagne’ Brigade would be formed by Frenchmen and make a valiant last stand at the Reich Chancellery, where it’s members would destroy 108 Soviet tanks in the process. Indeed, the last defenders in the area of Hitler’s Führerbunker complex were to be these Frenchmen. Eugene Vaulot, a 21-year-old Parisian who volunteered to partake in the defense of Berlin, knocked out 6 Soviet tanks on the 30th of April above the bunker complex where Hitler would take his own life on the very same day. This anecdote confirms the notion that Germany’s war in the East truly was recognized as a pan-European crusade against communism.
Several versions of this poster are known to exist in various languages, each distributed accordingly throughout Axis-occupied Europe.
