I love it when I teach on World War II. I have always been fascinated by the event, perhaps because my three oldest uncles fought in the war. Maybe I was influenced by how my little East Tennessee town honored the veterans of that war, along with the men from the Korean War and Vietnam War. To us, these men and women who served deserved our great gratitude as a country. Of course today, we have largely forgotten what the world was like in those years, the typical failure of a society losing its history (not surprising in a state like Florida that does not require History in its state colleges).
When I teach it, one key fact that I point out to my students is one reason by the Axis powers lost. They lost because they never really worked together. The Axis powers….Germany, Italy and Japan mostly along with some smaller countries like Finland and Bulgaria….failed at a key concept. They were allies on paper, but they were never really on the same page together.
Here’s a couple of examples—when Germany attacked the USSR, the most obvious thing one would expect from an ally like Japan who was on the Eastern border of Russia would be an attack. Even in the Japanese never fully committed troops, they could have kept Stalin’s troops focused in the east. That would have helped Germany.
During the war, Germany also never shared their technology with their allies. Thus, during the long four year war with USSR, at multiple points, those same allies were far too weak to truly be of any assistance in the battle. This fact came most disastrously to light during the infamous battle of Stalingrad. The weaker allies had been left to manage the rear areas, especially along the river Don, but when the Russians attacked cutting off the Germans stuck in the city, those same allies were incapable of standing their ground. They might have still lost to the powerful Russian attack, but had they been using the same top Germany military technology, well….
Compare that with the Allies—the UK, USSR and USA. We all shared everything….well, at least we shared or gave out a ton of materials. In the end, the allies got on the same page even though we weren’t all the closest of friends. Information, technology, material….we shared and shared alike. When some members of Parliament wanted to let Germany and the USSR battle it out alone, Prime Minister Churchill was resolute in his determination to ally with Russia. He famously stated that had Germany invaded hell, he would have made a positive suggestion about allying with Satan to defeat Hitler.
Life often works out this same way. You build allies and you succeed. You try to be a loner, isolated, keeping all of your ideas or thoughts private, you end up losing. Sure, there are some exceptions from history that could be suggested, people we perceive to be lone wolves who were awesome because they did it alone. I would offer that even those so-called mavericks are really just creations from some historian who twisted the story.
God created us for relationship. We were built to need others. You want success? Then you need to build allies. This is true at work, in your school, with your business, in your neighborhood…everywhere. Get started today. Get to know your neighbors. Give a friendly wave to those people you pass everyday. Be pleasant to the people in the shops you frequent, even getting to know their names. Be the person at work who helps others gladly and easily. Be the student who initiates the conversation with the others sitting near you.
Build allies in order to succeed. It is a key to how to Live Well. You can do it.