How the Second World War Became the New Religion of the West, writes Chad Crowley from the ‘Riding the Tiger’ Substack.

Extract:

Within this creed, the Second World War is remembered not as a geopolitical conflict, but as a holy war. According to the myth, the war was fought to liberate the world from tyranny, racism, and barbarism. It was a righteous crusade to stop a madman bent on planetary conquest, racial extermination, and totalitarian rule. In this telling, the Allies become selfless guardians of peace and justice, defenders of the weak, liberators of the oppressed, and champions of universal dignity.

What is left untold, what is buried or ignored, is the record of Soviet mass murder, the incineration of entire cities by firebombing, and the systematic rape of millions of women by victorious armies. These details are either omitted or minimized because the moral arc must remain unbroken, and the myth demands that the victors be pure, untarnished, beyond reproach. The enemy, in contrast, must be absolute—not merely defeated, but demonized, rendered metaphysically evil, so that the cause against him may be remembered as absolutely good.