Worldscope

  Forged in Ruins, Aiming for Unity: The Experiment of the European Union Part 1: The Phoenix Moment - Europe After the Cataclysm (1945-1949) Section 1.1: The Landscape of Devastation The year 1945 dawned not just on the end of a war, but on the wreckage of a continent. World War II, the most devastating conflict in human history, had concluded, leaving behind a landscape scarred by unprecedented destruction and unimaginable loss of life. Across Europe, cities lay in ruins, economies were shattered, and societies were traumatized. The sheer scale of the carnage was staggering: an estimated 60 million people had perished worldwide, with Europe bearing the brunt. Among the dead were 37 million civilians, including the six million Jews systematically murdered in the Holocaust. This shared experience of profound suffering created a deep-seated yearning for a different future, one where such catastrophe could never be repeated. The very idea of the aggressive, expansionist nation-state,...