Europe stands on the brink of a great conflagration

Surely with over 100,000 Russian troops close to Ukraine the world has to be on edge.

Yesterday Germany's navy chief stepped down after drawing criticism for saying Russian President Vladimir Putin deserved respect and that Kyiv would never win back annexed Crimea from Moscow.

"I have asked Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht to relieve me from my duties with immediate effect," Vice Admiral Kay-Achim Schoenbach said in a statement. "The minister has accepted my request."

The towns and cities being mentioned in the media these days have seen enough of war and brutality.

And then too, these very days 79 years ago the Red Army was in the process of defeating the German invader away to the east of cities such as Kharkiv.

On this day, January 23, 1943 the airport at Stalingradskaya was about to become unserviceable to the Germans, who were fast running out of ammunition and were also desperately short of food.

On January 22 the Soviets offered Germany’s Paulus a chance to surrender. Paulus requested that he be granted permission to accept the terms. He told Hitler that he was no longer able to command his men, who were without ammunition or food. 

Hitler rejected it on a point of honour. He telegraphed the Sixth Army claiming that it had made a historic contribution to the greatest struggle in German history and that it should stand fast "to the last soldier and the last bullet." Hitler told Goebbels that the plight of the Sixth Army was a "heroic drama of German history.” 

On  January 24, Paulus reported to Hitler that there were 18,000 wounded without the slightest aid of bandages and medicines.”

On January 30, 1943, the 10th anniversary of Hitler's coming to power, Goebbels said on radio: "The heroic struggle of our soldiers on the Volga should be a warning for everybody to do the utmost for the struggle for Germany's freedom and the future of our people, and thus in a wider sense for the maintenance of our entire continent.” 

Paulus notified Hitler that his men would likely collapse before the day was out. In response, Hitler issued a number promotions to the Sixth Army's officers. Most notably, he promoted Paulus to the rank of field marshal. In deciding to promote Paulus, Hitler noted that there was no record of a German or Prussian field marshal having ever surrendered. 

The implication was clear: if Paulus surrendered, he would shame himself and would become the highest-ranking German officer ever to be captured. Hitler believed that Paulus would either fight to the last man or commit suicide.

It was days from the final surrender on February 2.

It’s a date Russia has never forgotten, nor will ever forget. Nor will they ever forget the barbarity and cruelty that they suffered under the hands of the Germans.

Vladimir Putin knows that. And Germany too is ever conscious too of the wrong it did to the people of the Soviet Union and that includes Ukraine.

The ghost of history is all over these days.

In the years after the fall of the Berlin Wall the Soviet Union felt humiliated. Today the Russian president knows all the right buttons to press. And it is significant that what is happening in these days marks the anniversary of the beginning of the end for the German aggressor.