argia.eus
INPRIMATU
Not all deaths are worth the same
Nagore Irazustabarrena Uranga @irazustabarrena 2024ko ekainaren 20a
Library and Archives Canada

Normandy. 6 June 1944. They started operation Overlord: Thousands of British, American and Canadian soldiers landed on the beaches of Normandy to drastically change the course of the Second World War and, therefore, history. Or at least that's what we've been told a few days ago, on the 80th anniversary of landing, most media outlets.

And, like every year, they have forgotten the context, by then the Germans regressed on the African, Italian and, above all, Eastern fronts. And if in the Second World War a single turning point was chosen, for example, the battle of Stalingrad last year was objectively more decisive for German domination. The main front of the war was that of the East, which absorbed approximately 80 per cent of the German military capacity.

The Allies mercilessly bombed the enemy, or rather the Normans who were under the control of the enemy. But these data would obscure the mystified landing story.

Overlord's operation was, of course, decisive. But again, they remember the sacrifice of 4,400 allied soldiers who died on 6 June 1944 and another 50,000 deaths during the operation. And they don't mention that in those 24 hours, more than 3,000 civilians died, and over the course of the operation, more than 20,000, most of them from "liberating" allies. The Allies mercilessly bombed the enemy, or rather the Normans who were under the control of the enemy. But these data would obscure the mythological report of the landing.

As for the protagonists of the triumph of the allies, the Soviet role is undermined. To assist in the Overlord operation, so that the German forces did not turn to France, the Soviets attacked the Eastern front with two attacks: Bagration and Lvov-Sandomeirz. 251,000 Soviet soldiers were killed in these two attacks and 520,000 German soldiers. There is a further 200,000 Germans killed on the French front.

Of the more than one million soldiers and civilians killed during the Overlord operation, only 55,000 were landed in Normandy. But those are the ones who serve.