The Eastern front

Today I learned that nine out of 10 German war casualties during World War II were on the Eastern Front.

The statistic shocked me.

I knew some about the brutal battles in Russian winters, the siege of Stalingrad, the battle of Moscow. I knew the German soldier army's scorched-earth policy obliterated village after village as it marched east. And the Russians returned the favor as they turned the tide and marched toward Berlin.

But 90 percent of all German causalities died against an army other than ours?

The eye-opening statistic reminded me of how myopic I can be.

As a child, my dad read countless books about World War II, all of them in the European Theater and all of them from the western perspective. After graduating early from Boyd High School in 1945, he enlisted and took off for the war like his older brother John. But the war ended in April my dad would spend his Army time as part of the occupational force.

Meanwhile, I was taken by the air and naval battles in the Pacific Theater, so my grade school reading revolved around Pappy Boyington and Admiral Nimitz.

"Why don't you read about the battles in Europe?" he asked.

I don't recall the answer, but I do remember the thought: flying and shipping seemed more romantic than marching through mud.

So I only knew the vagaries of the Eastern Front until today, including the perpetual threat on "Hogan's Heroes," where German soldiers trembled at the threat of being sent to the Eastern Front.

Since learning this new statistic -- nine of 10; 90 percent -- I've studied the Eastern Front a little more and will continue to do so. I read that Herman Goring implored Hitler not to open up a battle in the East after being so successful as they ran over Denmark, the Low Countries and France. But Hitler had ignored the advice of his generals in battling France and now was megalomaniac in his military knowledge.

And many military scholars believe the Eastern Front was the real main theater of war in Europe. That D-Day and the western surge across France, while brave and well-generaled (a phrase I read in a Civil War book today), was important only in keeping Axis soldiers from fully fighting in the East.

It's good to be reminded of how we can be blinded by the world's history if we only account for our own history.