Europe celebrates the day with Trump in the head

“Celebration? What is the holiday? It is more like a funeral” – the damn words of the former older NATO figure to describe the ceremony this week, which celebrate the victory on Europe Day.

The highest level diplomat, who spent many years in the Alliance of Transatlantic Defense, asked him not to call him freely, but why so nihilistic? On the day he was a joint union triumph over Nazi Germany; over hatred, dictatorship, territorial expansion of the Third Reich and horrific crimes against humanity.

So much blood was spilled by reaching this victory. About 51 million allied soldiers and civilians were killed during World War II, united in an effort to rid the world of Nazism.

But for 80 years, we are surrounded by countless news and academic tests that breathe, highlighting Donald Trump as a modern nail in the coffin of strong transatlantic ties that are then fake. In Europe, the US president is considered by many as the main common values ​​of the decades; General vision of security, democracy and the rule of law.

But is it true, is it too simplified?

To get a full picture of what happened with allied ties after World War II, we cannot lower Russia, then or now.

By 1945, about 24 million Russians and other councils were stabbed in the war with Germany. Without their victims, as well as other allies, the Nazis would not be defeated.

“The only thing we have to admit is that Russia has never been a real member of the West,” says Michael Zantowski, a former Czech ambassador to Washington and London.

“During World War II, it was an ally for existential reasons. It needed any help (against the Nazis) that it could have received. And it was the same story with Western powers to be fair. They needed the help of the Soviet Union. But Russia did not plan to continue the alliance after the war. goals. “

There were splits at the moment when Germany was broken; There was even differences on what day the day fell. Western states witnessed the signing of German military surrender at the Reims French Cathedral, the news, which took place on May 8, 1945. The USSR wanted his own, separately, signing from Germany in Soviet Berlin a day. Russia marks the day from May 9 to the present.

Depending on where you are in Europe a day, the mood is diverse – especially this year.

Western Europe welcomes freedom, democracy and the termination of the Nazi threat. For example, in the UK, Are planned by several daytime celebrations This year, like every year.

But the people living in Central and Eastern Europe, such as Czechoslovakia, arose from the Nazi occupation in 1945 to be in the communist regimes or not.

As a result, the Zantovsky Ambassador characterizes his country’s attitude to “knowledge” as “ambiguous”.

“The western part of Czechoslovakia was liberated by US troops, the rest of the country by Soviet soldiers,” he tells me.

Czechoslovakia was taken by the Communist Party in 1948 and invaded the Soviet Union two decades. “In communist times, the role of the West in World War II was deliberately suppressed and marginalized. We were told that we owe our freedom (from the Nazis) to the Council.”

Russia marks the day with triumphic Military tips – And President Vladimir Putin knows a deep sense of nationalist pride, which the Russians still feel, winning the Nazi regime in 1945. It is no coincidence that he publicly marks the leadership of Ukraine “Nazis” as a means of overcoming them in Russian eyes.

During the day this year, President Putin called a three -day ceasefire with Ukraine – This is assumed because he wants to concentrate, continuously, showing Russia’s military mouse in front of the foreign dignitaries, including China’s president.

The official reason that Putin gave to the ceasefire was a “humanitarian platform”. Pretty irony, because he is the one who ordered to invade this sovereign country.

This invasion has returned complex memories for the Czechs of its own occupation and suppression. “That’s why we feel so much for Ukraine,” Zantowski says.

“It’s just a few hundred kilometers. Our sense of security is threatened again.”

That is why most Europeans are so shocked by President Trump’s obvious respect, even respect for Putin, at the same time verbally threatening the territorial integrity of traditionally closed allies, such as Canada and Denmark.

Europe viewed the United States as its closest friend from World War II. At the end of the 1940s, Washington poured money into a free continent -including Western Germany, which, if -was grateful to the United States for returning it after the horrors of Nazism. The United States also provided Europe’s security guarantees; NATO was founded in 1949.

But it was not an American altruism as it follows from Trump. It was also a marriage of convenience, all kinds.

After World War II, the United States was worried about the spread of communism. It is that Europe, with economy and infrastructure in dads, was vulnerable to both independent communist parties and abroad from the expansionist Soviet Union. Leaning to help restore Europe, the United States received geostrategic consolidation on the threshold of the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War.

The idea of ​​”West” made from countries that share goals and values ​​of security was born.

Can we now witness his death or gradual suppression? Of course, friendship is certainly not fallen. In 2025, the US president no longer felt Russia’s threat.

“The general story has served as the basis for (transatlantic) relations for eight decades, but that’s not enough to make more relationships forward,” former Washington Ambassador Julie Smith told me.

The war in Ukraine is the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II. With the Russian economy, it is strongly military -based, it has a potential for distribution.

Europe, unlike the US, still feels threatening Russia. The capital across the continent of Trump remained without speech and nervous, which blames Ukraine, not in Moscow, in bloodshed.

At a press conference on a television conference at the White House’s oval office in late February, where Trump and his deputy JD Vance seemed to be tried Lait, Brief and humiliation of the President of Ukraine Wladimir ZelenskyIt was a turning point in European public opinion and politics.

Yougov poll showed in March that for 80 years since the day, most of the Western European (78% in the UK, 74% in Germany, 75% in Spain) consider the White House as a great threat to peace and security in Europe.

In the East of Europe, the former sphere of influence of the Soviet Union, people are afraid of President Trump’s attitude to Ukraine will only be President Embolden Putin in his expansionist driver.

If Russia receives recognition for “conquest” in Ukraine, says historian and author Timothy Garton Ash, this year will be better indicated by De Day – Defeat on Europe Day.

And when Trump often accuses Europe of free loading and using the United States, there is nervousness among the leaders on the continent that they may remain alone to defend themselves for the first time after World War II. Increasing defense costs is now a huge topic in European capitals.

Berlin’s message took Trump’s first 100 days: “We can no longer rely on the United States,” says Peter Vitig, a former German ambassador to Washington.

This is a massive turn for the Germans who reluctantly restore their country’s military force after World War II. Instead, Germany was particularly leaning against the US for its safety. In Germany, there is a large piece of approximately 100,000 US troops located in Europe. American shops are also in the country.

Trump-six, among the usually pro-American German politicians, is so deep that it caused changes to the country’s constitution this spring. Parliamentarians voted for the uplift of the long -created loan brake Berlin – What are the limited public expenses – in order to invest large funds and include military military.

Ursula von der Leyen, once the German Defense Minister, is now the president of the European Commission in Brussels. She is transatlantic and talked carefully, but even she summed up the current situation that is strong: “The West, as we knew, no longer exist.”

However, the US turn from Europe may not just be blamed for Trump.

China, not Russia, has been regarded as a strategic number one strategic threat for some time. In 2012, US President Barack Obama said he wanted to focus his foreign policy on Asia, and Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden has invested a lot of time trying to attract allies in the Indo-Pacific region.

Trump or Trump or Trump, focusing on foreign policy in Asia and significantly abandoning Europe, is unlikely to change, says Ambassador Vitig – depending on the fact that the political party will win the next US elections – especially since the US is currently increasing in public.

Vitig calls it the “end of the era – the end of interaction in Europe.”

Despite all the European hands, there is a recognition among the continent’s leaders that 80 years after VE came when they take more responsibility for paying and providing their own defense opportunities, not to rely on Washington.

Some also see the potential in a reset. Ambassador Zanowski calls this “possibility caused by the crisis, a sense of relevance about security that has not existed (in Europe) over the last 30 years.”

Perhaps during the Western European societies of the Cold War had a young population and much more slender well -being. Costs of 4% or 5% of the gross domestic product failed.

Analysts say this is something that will now be needed to wean Europe in support of security in the US, but it is unclear whether modern voters will accept the painful compromises needed – in terms of reducing public health or education, for example, in return for raising the possibilities of protecting its country.

This is especially true in European countries, geographically away from the orbit of Russia, where the feeling of a direct threat feels less acute.

Mr. Garton Ash wonders whether there is a transitional path from the current NATO governing the US to a more European NATO, and the US is still at the table, but Europe takes responsibility for its own security.

“We need a new generation of political leaders who decide,” says political historian and biographer Sir Anthony Seldon.

“The need can often allocate the right people,” he added, reflecting on European and American leaders after World War II.

“Something is certainly broken. The future is uncertain. Do you need to go to war periodically to realize how scary it is, and make us work together?”

Eight decades from the hell they survived, surviving the Second World War veterans, they will tell you that they hope it won’t.