Lessons From History

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Today, April 30, is a critical day in 20th century history. Two transformational events occurred: the first, 80 years ago, and the second 50 years ago.
On April 30, 1945, Adolf Hitler, one of history’s most evil tyrants, committed suicide, which immediately brought to an end the European phase of the Second World War, which he had unleashed.
On April 30, 1975, the military forces of North Vietnam captured Saigon, thereby inflicting the most shameful defeat on the world’s greatest superpower, the United States, in the Vietnam War. Yet has mankind learnt any lessons from these epochal wars as we complete the first quarter of the 21st century?
World War II
The greatest conflict in the long history of wars and conquests began in September 1939 when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. The road to war had begun with Hitler’s reoccupation of the Rhineland in 1936, which was excised from Germany after the Treaty of Versailles.
Nazi leader Adolf HitlerHitler’s greed and ambition saw him, in quick succession, swallow up Austria in the Anschluss of 1938 and Czechoslovakia in 1939. The Second World War resulted in more than 50 million deaths, with some 20 million in the Soviet Union.
Hitler came into power lawfully on Jan 30, 1933. The speed with which he consolidated his hold on power was breathtaking. A wave of terror in the first week of Hitler’s takeover saw the police, aided by Nazi paramilitaries and unconstrained by legal niceties, imprison tens of thousands of communists and socialists who were tortured.
On the night of Feb 27, 1933, the Reichstag (the German Parliament building) was burnt in an arson attack. An Emergency Decree was declared the next day, suspending civil liberties. Soon thereafter, an Enabling Act gave Hitler dictatorial powers, which he exercised for the next 12 years. Violence and concentration camps marked the Nazi reign of terror.
In the view of one of his leading biographers, Ian Kershaw: “The Second World War and the Holocaust defined the twentieth century as nothing else did. Hitler was the chief author of both. It would be absurd to reduce such epoch-defining momentous events to the actions of one man.
It would be equally absurd to deny Hitler’s centrality to them. He was the prime mover of the most fundamental collapse of civilisation that modern history has witnessed…”
The Vietnam War
France attempted to regain control of its colony, Vietnam, after the Japanese surrender in August 1945. Vietnam’s inspirational leader, Ho Chi Minh, declared independence. Ho was a nationalist par excellence. After his request for US assistance against French imperial rule was rebuffed, he turned to the Soviet Union, and subsequently Mao’s China.
The French were defeated in the famous battle in Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Led by the brilliant General Vo Nguyen Giap, the Vietnamese army routed the French.
The Vietnam WarThe United States, slowly but surely, took over from the French. After the partition of North and South Vietnam, the US threw its support to the South. Four US presidents intensified US assistance: first by arms, followed by its troops, to shore up the hugely unpopular South Vietnamese regime.
Despite heavy bombing of Hanoi and other cities in the North, the US could not defeat the Vietnamese who were fighting to liberate their homeland from an imperial power.
The US, in a wholly misplaced obsession with monolithic Communism apparently controlled by Moscow and Peking, treated the Vietnamese nationalist struggle as part of a worldwide Cold War conspiracy. Washington regarded South East Asian countries as dominoes: unless the Communists were stopped in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Malaya would fall to the Communists.
Almost two million civilians were killed during the Vietnam War. Hanoi claimed that 1.4 million of its soldiers were killed. The US lost 58,000 lives. Again masterminded by General Giap, the North Vietnamese captured Saigon on April 30, 1975, with TV cameras filming live the last helicopters fleeing the US embassy.
Decades after the war, the American secretary of defence, Robert McNamara asked Giap who was the best general of the struggle, to which Giap answered with humility: “The people.”
The world in 2025
During the presidential campaign towards the end of last year, leaders of the Democratic Party in the US called Donald Trump, a second Hitler. They were much criticised.
Obviously 77 million voters did not care and voted Trump as their president. Despite knowing all about his character and personality, and despite all his promises on what he would do, Americans voted for him.
Perhaps for these reasons. The similarities between Hitler and Trump are uncanny. Both came to power lawfully. Both made decisions which had draconian effects on society within days and weeks of assuming power. Neither permits any attempt to check his power or authority. The cult of personality applies to both.
Each wants a massive centralisation of power. Independent judges are publicly criticised, and in Nazi Germany, quickly disappeared. Both are white supremacists. They seek an empire. Hitler wanted to be the Master of Europe, and his “living space” doctrine led him to invade the Soviet Union. Trump wants to annex Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal.
US President Donald TrumpAnd who between them is the Greater Liar? In a typical day, both utter lies, disinformation and misinformation constantly and continuously. If Goebbels thrived in Nazi Germany, so do Elon Musk and JD Vance in Trumpland.
So, what is the Supreme Lesson that History teaches us about the Second World War and the Vietnam War?
Evil leaders and nations must be confronted, challenged and finally fought. Appeasement means surrender. Negotiations result in capitulation. In such times of great danger to humanity and civilisation, the world needs leaders of courage and conviction. We need Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap.
Regrettably, only Xi Jinping and Mark Carney pass this test among contemporaneous leaders. Nearly every other leader of the 200 odd countries across the globe has responded to Trump as Stanley Baldwin, Lord Halifax, Neville Chamberlain, and a long line of timid and unprincipled French prime ministers in the Third Republic, did to Hitler. By genuflecting to the “Great Leader”.
It may begin as Tariffs and Economic Warfare. History is replete with examples of such seemingly innocent action becoming the precursor of warfare by other means.
Let Churchill inspire: “Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last. All of them hope that the storm will pass before their turn comes to be devoured. But I fear greatly that the storm will not pass. It will rage and it will roar ever more loudly, ever more widely.” - Mkini
TOMMY THOMAS is a former attorney-general.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.

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