V.E.Lucky.

By the time Hitler got round to his big day in the bunker it was pretty much all over with regards to his grand plans for a thousand year Reich. By late April 1945 he had very likely narrowed down his ambitions slightly, but even then another 988 years living in a bunker with flickering lights, reinforced doors and the unmistakable odour soup of urine, sweat and fear was unlikely to have been quite the sort of glorious Reich he had in mind. He had, he must have convinced himself, tried his best, but his best just hadn’t been good enough. No doubt his blushing young bride, Eva, would have attempted to distract him with small talk and a few saucy suggestions for some role play games they might play on their wedding night, if he played his cards right, but these would have failed to register in the clouded brain of the most popular Fuhrer Germany had seen for quite some time. Still, one imagines it must have been a day of unbridled joy, down there in that bunker, the clinking of glasses and slapping of backs almost drowning out the artillery shells exploding above them as a skipping gramophone crackled out whatever the mid 40’s German equivalent was of ‘Dance The Night Away’ by The Mavericks. And no doubt Hitler was quick to thank his best man, Joseph Goebbels, possibly rewarding him with enough morphine and cyanide pills to murder his wife and many children a few days later; you know, as a treat.

Poor Eva’s marriage didn’t last long, almost serving as a precursor to those short lived celebrity marriages we are so familiar with today; Britney Spears managed a 55 hour union, but even then Ms Braun still pipped her to the post. It was probably for the best, because with all the stress Adolf was under it is unlikely that any sort of lederhosen based shenanigans would have had the mattress springs working overtime that night. The game was up, the fun was done and the party was most definitely over, and a mere 40 hours later the Hitler’s (as they had planned to sign off their Christmas cards that year) were dead and being turned to ashes in the bunker back garden. Eva had taken a suicide pill and Adolf, the man who had ranted and cursed and forbidden a single German the freedom to surrender had, somewhat hypocritically, put a bullet through his own brain. What an arsehole. They hadn’t even had time to open all the presents. Within days the Goebbels’ had followed suit and what was left of the German high command finally deigned to crawl out from under their rock and stumbled, blinking, into the sunshine and dust, ready to give up the keys to the kingdom. Ready to give us our victory in Europe. How kind of them.

Celebrating 80 years of victory in Europe is all well and good but right now, in 2025, it doesn’t seem to me that there is a great deal worth celebrating. It is right and proper that we always recognise the sacrifices made by so many and the staggering levels of bravery exhibited by those who had to run into bullets for a living, but surely there will come a time when celebrating the end of World War II will seem a bit pointless. After all, it’s not as if Europe has spent the last 80 years in idyllic bliss, each country taking turns to skip through meadows with one another, a continent in clover and where every month is forever May (oddly enough). Since 1945 there have been literally dozens (more realistically, hundreds) of conflicts kicking up a storm across Europe, from Belfast to Bucharest. Just the Cold War alone, with all its dark corridors, hushed secrets and brutal suppression was enough to keep half of Europe in the killing business. We’ve had Cod Wars and Mafia Wars, revolutions and uprisings and I think I’m right in saying that the Croatian War of Independence wasn’t solved with a game of chess and that the Bosnian War was a little more brutal than a playground altercation. The Troubles lasted for 30 years and that was a home fixture, so I think it’s safe to assert that the end of WWII was hardly the dawn of an emphatic peace for our time.

Still, all the King’s men and some of his horses came out to play today, to show off the usual pageantry that we can expect when celebrating 80 years of freedom and the not-really-an-end to war in Europe. I wonder if they’re doing the same thing in Russia, as they count up the tab for all the misery they have thrown on Europe (well, eastern Europe at least) in the last eight decades? Out came the dignitaries and the veterans and handfuls of old people who are starting to look like they would struggle to remember what they had for breakfast, let alone why they’re sitting on a sofa in front of Sophie Raworth or what colour socks they last wore in the air raid shelter. Soon, and sooner than you think, we’ll be struggling to find anyone for whom WWII and the Nazis and any other horror you’d care to mention is still a tangible memory. Today’s events also threw into shocking widescreen just how depleted the Royal Family have become. Years ago that balcony would be teeming with genetically dubious life and now, with Harry, Andrew and assorted others living very different lives, we’re down to a handful; of which one, The Duke Of Kent, looked like he had been briefly exhumed to enjoy a bit of fresh air and, hopefully, a cucumber sandwich just moist enough he’d be able to keep it down. I suppose he represents Europe in a funny way – 80 years of something like peace and now staring death in the face, which is what always happens in the end, whether you win, lose or draw. I’m glad I didn’t arrange a street party, but I would’ve liked to have been a fly on the wall at Hitler’s wedding, just to see how weird it all must have been. Phew, we’re lucky we don’t have any shit-for-brains megalomaniacs like that around these days. Yes, really lucky.

G B Burton. 05.05.2025