Europe's Abyss: Chronicle of a Total War
By: Dr. Marco Benavides September 1, 1939 dawned with the metallic roar of German tanks penetrating the Polish plains. That day, Europe not only crossed a geographical border: it crossed the threshold into its own abyss. What followed was a vertiginous descent into absolute barbarity, a conflict that devoured entire continents and claimed more than sixty million lives. The Second World War was not simply a succession of battles: it was the violent implosion of a world order that could no longer sustain itself on its own contradictions. The seeds of this catastrophe germinated in the rubble of the Treaty of Versailles. That peace agreement was nothing more than revenge disguised as diplomacy, a document that humiliated Germany without disarming its resentment. The Weimar Republic floundered amidst hyperinflation and mass unemployment, while in the beer halls of Munich, an Austrian corporal with a trimmed mustache promised national redemption. Adolf Hitler did not invent hatred: he ...