Dear CCI Friends,
Many, many years ago, when I was an undergrad journalism major, the famous reporters of the World War II era figured heavily in the curriculum at my universities. Not only did we study the professionalism of the craft as they practiced it – both in print and in broadcast media – but we got a good dose of history, the most momentous event in history in fact, at the same time.
One of the most respected of that generation of reporters was William Shirer. From 1934 to 1940 he lived in Germany and covered the rise of Nazism and Adolf Hitler. In addition to reporting, he kept a detailed diary of what he saw during those years and published his “Berlin Diary” after he slipped out of the clutches of the Gestapo in 1940 and six months before the US entered the war. It was an immediate best seller, giving Americans their first real insight into the ideology and functioning of the Nazi regime.
I did not realize until recently, when I was browsing through a small, rural library, that Shirer had published a sequel – “End of the Berlin Diary” – that covered his experiences from after the Normandy landing in 1944 through the beginning of the Nuremberg trials in late 1945.
If you are wondering why I am dragging you through this bit of ancient history it is because of this: in that sequel the palpable feeling of overwhelming relief, the beginning of a sense that optimism might be allowed in our world once again, and the expression of virtually universal hope for the future among the Allies in that period is almost too painful to take in considering what is happening in Europe today.
The feeling that that War, the one that became known as World War II, was very nearly the end of civilization and that a World War III, even without nuclear weapons, would surely finish it off for good, infused his observations. Consider:
On the Yalta Conference and resulting Yalta Agreement signed by Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill, February 1945: a “landmark in human history,” “the most hopeful document produced in the present century.” And he goes on, the Allies are determined to make sure this time that, “Germany will never again be able to disturb the peace of the world.”
What would the reporters of 1945 make of this July 2026 headline: What’s Driving Germany’s Planned €800 Billion Remilitarization?
How could they comprehend the shift in values and, may I suggest, morality that would have England and France – both of which suffered horrendously in the ‘40’s, with France occupied by the Germans for five years and England enduring a year of air bombardment through the Battle of Britain and the Blitz – today partnering up with Germany to declare their intention of going to war against Russia, the former ally that carried the weight in destroying their 1940’s enemy? And for what? What exactly has Russia done to them?
If we consider what started out as a civil war in Ukraine, one side of which was backed, not so subtly, by NATO and the other side eventually given full support from Russia, and all of the escalation that has followed, can we truly say that this dispute is worth the destruction of Europe, perhaps the world?
Much of Shirer’s 1945 reporting covered the two months’ long meeting in San Francisco of fifty countries that came together to thrash out the terms of what became the United Nations Charter. Here is Shirer’s description of that event:
“We are living so close to events it is difficult to realize the importance of the San Francisco conference. Someone calls it “the most important gathering since the Last Supper.” Even decades later we can feel what today would be called the ‘vibe’ of that time, the willingness and ability of multiple nations around the world to do the work to create an alternative to the horrendous experience of global war.
And where are we today?
According to what we hear from Britain, France, and Germany (especially German Chancellor Merz) ‘we’ (‘they’ I would insist) are on the road to war against Russia. The leaders of those countries speak of this coming war, by 2030 at the latest, with buoyant enthusiasm, so much so that we must ask why the lot of them are not confined to mental institutions for the criminally insane.
To imagine what they are contemplating for their countries, please consider the analysis by Steve Jermy, British Royal Navy, retired:
It is time, past time in fact, to stop taking this blatant war mongering sitting down. CCI is developing a program to confront the overwhelming arts of war that are currently tearing the world apart and we would like to invite the CCI community to join in. Please help us. One friend is developing a series of video programs called “The Art of Peace” and we plan to build on that model – how to take the centuries of thought and volumes of analysis on how to make War and turn them to good use, how to make Peace. If war planning comes down to ‘strategy, operations and tactics,’ can the same disciplines be applied to peace planning?
Send us your thoughts on creative action plans for peace, please. The hope for the future the world allowed itself to feel, and indeed earned the right to feel, in 1945 must not be destroyed on our watch.
Sincerely,
Paula Day, President
Center for Citizen Initiatives
William S. Shirer, “End of a Berlin Diary,” copyright 1947, published by A. Knopf, Inc.,
“Berlin Diary; The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent, 1934-1941,” copyright 1941,
“The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany,” copyright 1960, Simon & Schuster, National Book Award for Non-Fiction