What Is There to Celebrate on D-Day?

This Friday marks the 70th anniversary of the Allied invasion at Normandy. It is celebrated not so much because “Operation Overlord” marked the beginning of the end of the Nazi regime — which would properly be celebrated on Nov. 19, 1942, the day German forces were bottled up in Stalingrad. The celebrations surrounding “D-Day” are about something else: the anti-Hitler coalition. The question is what significance that has for us today.

Let’s begin with Josef Stalin. His army liberated Auschwitz, to mention just one heroic deed. But to suggest that that’s what the Soviet leaders set out to do at the time would be basking in the afterglow of Cold War Soviet propaganda; Soviet communism annihilated millions of people in the 20th century.

D-Day marked the start of the race between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union to claim as much of German-occupied Europe as possible. A new division of Europe. Winston Churchill visited Moscow in October 1944 and asked Stalin what he thought of Russia claiming 90 percent of Romania, the Western Allies claiming 90 percent of Greece and splitting Yugoslavia 50-50? Stalin was in agreement.

When the haggling was over, half of Europe had disappeared behind the Iron Curtain. But before that came about, the British and the Americans began their senseless carpet bombing that destroyed the cities of Hamburg, Dresden and Tokyo, followed by the nuclear annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

And that’s supposed to have been a “good war” as the Allies still persist in calling it?

Every war goes beyond its military goals because it unleashes violence. But it was only through such violence that Hitler’s extermination machine, and with it the fantasies of the German people, were able to be stopped. The Allies liberated the Jews — at least those still alive — as well as others, even those Germans who were undeserving of being saved. Of course it was a good thing the Allies fought that war.

Meanwhile the Germans are also taking part in the D-Day celebrations even if their head of state is not. Germany’s crimes have become a historic event at which we Germans have almost become merely visitors at the museum — almost. The task of educating is not yet completed.

The festivities have meanwhile become diplomatic ritual, days of protocols far removed from the conflict. Naturally, France’s François Hollande invited Vladimir Putin, but it’s not yet certain that Russia’s ruler will dine at the Élysée Palace on the eve of the celebration. France has succeeded now in becoming an equal among equals in the anti-Hitler coalition, something that tends to make people forget the country was torn between collaboration and resistance. It rankles that Hollande feeds the suspicion that he favors a tradition of Franco-Russian diplomacy that hardly makes a unified Western front credible. Putin in turn is able to play the anti-fascist again even though he has been standing in the way of Ukraine’s newly elected president.

Finally, David Cameron and Barack Obama look forward to a welcoming appearance on Friday. One of them can play the role of insular independence and the other the practitioner of scrupulous foreign policy. But what should we expect? That politicians wouldn’t use this day to their own advantage?

In any case, Angela Merkel will be inconspicuous on June 6. She has a better developed sense for the right time and the right place.