Deadliest War
Driving leisurely through Munich impressed me greatly.
It was enchanting to see the vast and lush green landscape, with highly scenic backdrop of Bavarian Alps that define border with Austria.
The tall and upright ornamental trees along main avenues help make the city look so beautiful.
As a capital city, Munich has been an important political centre in Germany.
Historically, it was the birthplace of National Socialism, and in 1923 Hitler and his supporters had made the abortive attempt to overthrow the Weimar Republic.
The revolt failed, resulting in Hitler's arrest and the temporary crippling of the Nazi Party.
While in prison, Hitler began the dictation of his book Mein Kampf (My Struggle). It combines elements of autography with an exposition of his political ideology.
He projected three stages of Germany’s political emergence on the world scene, the first stage being a programme of massive re-armament to overthrow the shackles of the Treaty of Versailles.
The resentment generated by the Treaty had provided fertile psychological ground for the rise of the Nazi party and Adolf Hitler.
Military build-up began almost immediately, in direct defiance of the Treaty which by then had been destroyed in front of a cheering crowd.
Munich become a Nazi stronghold in Germany in 1933. The adulation of Hitler was the hallmark of the Nazi middle years.
His sudden rise in power, and militancy, brought Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister, to Munich in 1938 on a doomed mission to ensure " peace in our time".
Munich Agreement forced Czechoslovakia to surrender its Sudetenland to Germany because of Hitler's territorial and ethnic claim.
However, the agreement, backed also by France and Italy to avert war, failed to stop Hitler from occupying the rest of Czechoslovakia soon thereafter.
His invasion of Poland came nearly a year after the Munich Agreement. Britain and France responded with ultimatums, and started the second global conflict in 1939 that continued up to 1945.
I was in my teens but vividly remember the start of World War II, when my father was posted in Rangpur, Pakistan.
A visitor had cone to inform him that he had heard the news of war outbreak on radio.
World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history.
Although the casualty statistics vary greatly, estimates of total dead range from 50 million to over 70 million.
Civilians killed totalled from 40 million to 52 million, including 13 to 20 million from war-related disease and famine.
