Latest news with #Hitler
The Sun
4 hours ago
- Politics
- The Sun
Germany rules out short-term recognition of Palestinian state
BERLIN: Germany is not planning to recognise a Palestinian state in the short term and said its priority now is to make 'long-overdue progress' towards a two-state solution, a German government spokesperson said on Friday. 'Israel's security is of paramount importance to the German government,' said the spokesperson. 'The German government therefore has no plans to recognise a Palestinian state in the short term.' France's decision to recognise a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly in September also drew condemnation from Israel and the United States, amid the ongoing war in Gaza between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas. Germany's stance on Israel is strongly influenced by what it regards as a special responsibility to atone for the Nazi Holocaust against European Jews in which six million were killed during Hitler's 1933-45 regime. French President Emmanuel Macron announced the decision late Thursday, shortly before British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he would hold an emergency call with France and Germany on the humanitarian situation in Gaza on Friday. Britain's immediate priority is alleviating suffering in Gaza and securing a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, a cabinet minister said on Friday, even as Starmer came under growing pressure to recognise a Palestinian state. Italy's foreign minister said on Friday that recognition of a Palestinian state must occur simultaneously with the recognition of Israel by the new entity. 'A Palestinian state that does not recognise Israel means that the problem will not be resolved,' Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani told a meeting of his conservative Forza Italia party. France's move, though symbolic, underlined Israel's increasing international isolation over its devastating war in Gaza and could open the door for other major nations to perhaps follow suit. PALESTINIAN LEADER WELCOMES FRENCH MOVE Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in a statement welcoming the French move, credited the leadership of Saudi Arabia with playing 'a key role in encouraging France's decision to recognise the State of Palestine', the Palestinian official news agency WAFA reported. 'President Abbas urged all countries, especially European nations that have not yet recognised the State of Palestine, to do so based on the internationally endorsed two-state solution,' it cited Abbas as saying. Saudi Arabia has been pushing France to recognise Palestine over the past year with efforts led by Saudi foreign minister Faisal bin Farhan, said a source close to the royal court. Palestinians have long sought to create an independent state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem - lands Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war - through a mediated peace process. Many accuse Israel of having destroyed Palestinian statehood prospects through increased settlement building in the West Bank and by levelling much of Gaza during the current war. Israel rejects this. The Palestine Liberation Organization recognised Israel's right to exist in peace in 1993 at the start of the U.S.-backed peace process which set up the Palestinian Authority, which Abbas heads, in what Palestinians hoped would be a stepping stone towards statehood. But Hamas and other Palestinian Islamist militants who dominate Gaza and frequently clash with Israeli forces in the West Bank refuse to recognise Israel. Hamas' 1988 founding charter called for the destruction of Israel, although Hamas leaders have at times offered a long-term truce with Israel in return for a viable Palestinian state on all Palestinian territory occupied by Israel in the 1967 war. Israel regards this as a ruse. - Reuters
Indian Express
4 hours ago
- Politics
- Indian Express
Blitzkrieg to Hiroshima: How the Second World War reshaped the global order
In a historic move, the UK and Germany signed their first bilateral treaty since the Second World War, pledging 'mutual assistance' in case of attack. This development warrants a look back at the Second World War, in which the UK was a major Allied power while Germany was an Axis. The first thing that strikes one about the Second World War is the small time gap that divides it from the First World War, a mere 21 years. The First World War ended on November 11, 1918, and the Second World War began on September 1, 1939, when Hitler invaded Poland. The First World War was concluded with a very flawed peace agreement in the form of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. It was the failures of this peace agreement and the resentment felt by Germany at the unjust conditions imposed upon it that gave rise to the Second World War. The Second World War lasted from 1939 to 1945 and caused a staggering loss of between 40 to 50 million lives. The path to the Second World War was a steady, two-decade-long buildup. A combination of political and economic factors came together to pave the way for the rise of a politician like Adolf Hitler in Germany. After the First World War, the liberal Weimar Republic replaced the Wilhelmine monarchy in Germany. Throughout the 1920s, it was shaped by leaders like Gustav Stresemann, who adapted to the new realities of the Weimar Republic after the fall of the monarchy. Stresemann briefly served as Chancellor in 1923 and then as Foreign Minister until his death in 1929. He was opposed to the Treaty of Versailles, whose terms he found difficult to implement. Among the provisions of the treaty were the payment of war reparations to the victorious Allies and the demilitarisation of the Rhineland that lay on Germany's Western border with France. In 1923, Germany experienced hyper-inflation as it struggled to pay the war reparations that were imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. Rifts appeared between Britain and France in terms of how to impose the measures of the treaty. At the same time, the famed and lofty idealism of the US President Woodrow Wilson came into play through his famous fourteen points. The last point created the League of Nations, which was to serve as the predecessor of the United Nations that was set up in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War in October 1945. However, other aspects of Wilson's lofty idealism such as the right to national self-determination were to come crashing down on the harsh realities of European politics in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. Eventually, even the US Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles. There are perhaps three elements that define the build-up to the Second World War. The first was the unstable nature of the Weimar Republic, whose economic difficulties were exploited by a rising politician like Adolf Hitler. The Weimar Republic came to an end in 1933 when the Nazi party secured dominance in the German parliament, the Reichstag, and Hitler was appointed as Chancellor. The second factor was the harsh economic realities of the 1920s and 1930s. The Great Wall Street Crash of October 1929 was one of the world's first truly economic crises, whose adverse effects and reverberations were felt all around the world, and especially in Europe. The Wall Street crash ushered in a decade (the 1930s) seen in terms of economic depression and unemployment. In response to this crisis, British economist John Maynard Keynes produced his seminal work The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money in 1936. His ideas would later play a significant role in shaping the post-Second World War international economic order, particularly through the setting up of the Bretton Woods institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. The third major factor leading to the Second World War was the policy of appeasement adopted by Great Britain towards the escalating demands of Germany. This policy is associated with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, especially as it played out at the Munich conference of 1938. Chamberlain believed that the policy of appeasement was the best way to avoid war and to buy time for Britain to prepare militarily. Signs of impending war became obvious as early as 1936, when Hitler decided to remilitarise the Rhineland in violation of one of the key provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. That same year in July, Hitler's Nazi Germany and Benito Mussolini's Italy came together and backed General Francisco Franco's fascist assault against the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. In 1938, Hitler signed the Anschluss or pact with Austria that resulted in the merger of Austria with Germany, which further consolidated his position. That same year, Hitler kept making the case for the Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia, using their minority status to persuade France and Britain that the Sudetenland must be ceded to Germany. This was followed the next year in 1939 by Germany's invasion and occupation of the rest of Czechoslovakia. The Second World War was very different from the First World War as far as the greater use of air power was concerned. The German air force or the Luftwaffe, conducted devastating air raids on London and other major British cities in the early stages of the war. The Battle of Britain, which took place between July and October 1940, saw the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and the German Luftwaffe engage in intense aerial combat. The Allied powers – Great Britain, France, the US, and the Soviet Union – were pitted against the Axis powers – Germany, Italy and Japan. The early stages of the war saw German advances through overwhelming aerial strikes that were then rapidly followed by military and tank maneuvers on the ground. These tactics, known as the blitzkrieg ('lightning war'), allowed the Germans to overrun Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Yugoslavia, and Greece in the short span between September 1939 and April 1941. The American entry into the war, following the Japanese attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941, significantly turned the tide in favour of the Allied powers as the US was able to deploy massive amounts of military resources. The American entry into the war was preceded by the lend-lease agreement that allowed President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to transfer large amounts of war material, supplies and munitions to the Allies. A decisive turning point came when the German offensive against Soviet Russia on the Eastern Front was thwarted at the famous Battle of Stalingrad that took place between August 23, 1942 and February 2, 1943. The Germans suffered other major reversals in the battlefields in Northern Africa, most famously the Second Battle of El-Alamein between October 23 and November 11, 1942, when the famous German Field Marshall Erwin Rommel was defeated. As a result, Italian and German advances in North Africa, especially around the strategically significant Suez Canal, were checked. The Axis powers seemed to be doing better in East Asia. In February 1942, British-controlled Singapore fell to the Japanese Red Army, which continued its advance by taking over the Andaman Islands in March 1942. One of the most frequently talked about military turning points of the Second World War happened on June 6, 1944, with Operation Overlord that saw the landing of 1,56,000 men on the beaches of Normandy in northern France. This military operation was under the overall command of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who would go on to serve as US President in the next decade. As 1944 drew to a close and 1945 began, the war's trajectory was marked by advances of Allied powers, the US and British, from the West and the Soviet forces from the East as they closed in on Berlin, with the final fall happening in May 1945. Hitler himself committed suicide along with his mistress Eva Braun on April 30, 1945, when Soviet forces were on the verge of reaching Berlin. A few months later, the Second World War came to a conclusive end, with the dropping of atomic bombs by the US over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in early August 1945. The defeat of the Axis powers created a new world order that was defined by the hegemony of the US. In terms of the lineaments of the new world order, it gave rise to an international rules-based system. Landmark proceedings such as the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials set important legal precedents by introducing concepts like war crimes and crimes against humanity. The horrors of the Holocaust and the concentration camps run by the Nazis gave rise to the Genocide Convention adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948, which emphasized the idea that such unspeakable crimes must 'never again' happen. In what ways did the Second World War differ from the First World War in terms of strategy, technology, and scale? To what extent was the German strategy of blitzkrieg responsible for early Axis victories? How did the entry of the US in WWII transform the balance of power? How did the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki shape the post-war geopolitical landscape? In what ways did the Holocaust influence the formation of post-war human rights conventions and norms? Evaluate how the experiences of the Second World War shaped the creation of post-war multilateral institutions, such as the UN, the IMF and the World Bank. (Amir Ali is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi) Share your thoughts and ideas on UPSC Special articles with Subscribe to our UPSC newsletter and stay updated with the news cues from the past week. Stay updated with the latest UPSC articles by joining our Telegram channel – IndianExpress UPSC Hub, and follow us on Instagram and X.
IOL News
9 hours ago
- General
- IOL News
Green Shoots: Our anger is key to hope, and our humanity
It is hard to write about things that lighten the heart, that cheer the soul, that tickle our funny bone and make us laugh with abandon. I think it was the people's poet Mzwakhe Mbuli who asked how he could be expected to write about the beautiful daisies when the horror of apartheid is what was his lived reality? What I really want to write about and explore with you are the green shoots of hope that emerge when we change our behaviour and attitudes, the things that are within our ambit of control, the things that would make for a better world – kindness, love, integrity, compassion. And I will do that – I have no desire to pontificate and lecture everyone about politics and rights and all those things. 'Green Shoots' has to resonate with you who take the time to read the thing, and hopefully move you to think about helping to create a better world. Today, I don't know if I can do that easily. Today, I have been absorbing the images coming out of Gaza of starving children, clinging to life because that is at the core of every human – to survive. And the Gazans have shown more of that desire to live than most. I remember. It was the Jews in the concentration camps and ghettoes who showed the same determination to resist their extermination. It was they who refused to die at the hands of the most barbarous system the world had seen. Nazism enabled the most horrendous atrocities to be visited on a people. History is full of these atrocities. It is filled with the stench of genocide – and the inhumanity of the perpetrators. In Namibia, colonial Germany tried to exterminate the Herero and Nama people, and today are being forced into making reparations. In South Africa, the British interred Afrikaners and black Africans in concentration camps, starving them into a submission that would not happen, that they refused. In Europe, Hitler and his thugs killed 6 million Jews, Sinti, and Roma people, and did all they could to destroy resistance to the Reich. The argument made by Israel is that the Jewish people needed a place they could call their own, where they could be free of the persecution that most of Europe visited on them. This is why they came to Palestine. It didn't matter that there were people living there – they claimed a God-given right to take over. Anything born out of such violence cannot be maintained without more violence. Israel, with the backing of the USA, UK, and others, has taken that violence to levels even the most zealous of the Nazis and their ilk could not imagine. Ethnic cleansing first by bombardment, then by starvation. How can we not be angry? But let it not be an impotent anger, where we throw our hands up, hopeless in the face of unspeakable evil. Let us be filled with a rage that says no to evil, that drives us to not shut up when the issue is raised in our social interaction and conversations, but instead to challenge anyone who says Israel is simply defending itself, or that Israel is defending the holy land, or whatever other narrative the evil ones try to spin. Speak out. Our anger now must drive our refusal to lose our own humanity by giving in to hopelessness. Even if we are not in the halls of the United Nations, we maintain the spark of humanness and love and justice and kindness by affirming our solidarity with those who survive in spite of Israel's genocidal actions. Our anger must nurture the hearts and minds of our children who must know that we were not okay with this, that we didn't keep quiet while the most monstrous human atrocities are being carried out in full view of the world. Don't feel impotent – don't give in to 'there's nothing I can do that will change this'. Resist. At all times resist the lure of despair. If those in Gaza can still live, can resist, who are we to give up?
STV News
12 hours ago
- Science
- STV News
Operation Sandcastle: The mission to destroy Hitler's chemical weapons
In 1936, a German researcher named Gerhard Schrader created the first ever nerve agent by accident. He was attempting to develop a new insecticide for Germany's food supply, but instead created a deadly chemical weapon, which, while on the brink of war, Hitler would begin developing to use on the Allied forces. Thankfully, the nerve agent was never deployed by the Nazis, and after the war, Britain found itself needing to dispose of what it had seized. Operation Sandcastle was the mission to get rid of a stockpile of more than 71,000 bombs in the sea off the coasts of Scotland and Northern Ireland. Today, 70 years on, there are still many unanswered questions. After discovering that Schrader's insecticide not only killed insects but also the animals around them, researchers began developing it as a weapon as World War II loomed. The nerve agent was called Tabun, from the German word for taboo. While other chemical weapons such as mustard gas and phosgene took hours or days to kill victims, Tabun required only 20 minutes. In 1943, the first large-scale Tabun factory was up and running in Poland. Hitler, however, never sanctioned the use of Tabu. In the years after the war ended, the British captured thousands of German bombs filled with the nerve agent. While most were destroyed, a stockpile was split between Britain and the US. But many of the bombs were leaking or were too dangerous to keep. In 1954, the Ministry of Defence concluded that the Tabun held no value in a world with nuclear weapons and, by then, more advanced chemical weapons like sarin were prevalent. Operation Sandcastle was tasked with dumping the stockpile of Tabun 80 miles north west of Northern Ireland. The stockpile was first brought to Cairnyan, in Dumfries and Galloway, where the weapons were divided among three ships to be ready for scuttling – the act of purposefully sinking a ship. On July 25, 1955, 16,088 bombs were loaded onto the SS Empire Claire before it was towed out to sea. iStock At around 10am, on July 27, TNT charges were used to sink the vessel and its load 2,500 metres down into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. The MV Vogtland and the SS Kotka were loaded with the rest of Tabun, approximately 26,000 bombs each, and they too were sunk. In 2020, the Ministry of Defence was criticised after it was revealed it lost the records containing the details of 24 chemical weapons, including those of Operation Sandcastle. It was also revealed that the dumped nerve agent was never monitored. Google Earth According to the then-secretary state of defence, there was no monitoring because of the depth of the water and because Tabun is 'destroyed by hydrolysis and rendered harmless in seawater'. After the destruction, the world has not seen the end of chemical weapons. During the Iran-Iraq war beginning in 1980, Iran engaged in chemical warfare against Iraq. It was used in the Tokyo subway terrorist attacks in 1995. In 2012, the Syrian regime used the chemical weapon sarin on its own civilians during the 14-year-long civil war. Get all the latest news from around the country Follow STV News Scan the QR code on your mobile device for all the latest news from around the country
India Today
a day ago
- Politics
- India Today
ED conducts raids on properties linked to Anil Ambani in Mumbai
5:06 A Hindu temple in Melbourne has been targeted in a hate attack. The Swaminarayan temple in the Boronia suburb was defaced with filthy graffiti, including an image of Hitler, on the night of Sunday and Monday. This act of vandalism is allegedly the work of a Neo-Nazi group that has also targeted synagogues and Asian-owned businesses in the area. An interviewee on the programme, Jitarth from Australia Today, highlighted the recurring nature of these incidents and criticised the authorities' response. He stated, "authorities simply come and just write a report, take the CCTV footage and arrest and bail. This is the norm these days in Australia." While the Premier of Victoria, Jacinta Allen, condemned the attack, there are concerns about a lack of strong action to prevent such hate crimes against the Indian-Australian community.
