Teacher
Class
28 October 2014
Moral Heroism
The Second World War was one of the most extreme and terrible wars that occurred in history with estimated death tolls as high as 60 million. Officially beginning on September 1st, 1939 with the invasion of Poland and ending on September 2nd, 1945 with the surrender of Japan, World War II devastated Europe and the Pacific sector for a seemingly never ending six years. Over 60 cities were completely or mostly destroyed with more than 2.5 million tons of bombs dropped. It was a global crisis, but to an extent that most do not know about. In fact, 61 countries were involved and 1.7 billion people participated one way or another, three quarter’s of the world’s population!
Heroism, a characteristic most commonly associated with soldiers and wars, was not solely based on being on the ‘good side’ during the war. It was not just battle for defense and it was not just the fulfillment of military duty for one’s country. War has absolutely no humane side or no right justification, yet heroism is doing the good, the right thing, or whatever is moral, even though it might go against authority. Thus, even if a person was forced to fight for a cause they didn't believe, the simple action of resistance proved them to be heroes. These people used logic to clearly see what was right. They stood from a judicious and objective point of view and strived for the good.
Ultimately, heroism is not defined by the end game success, but by the attempt at putting morality and lives of others above danger, which is exactly what Philipp Freiherr von Boeselager did. In his book, Valkyrie, Philipp uses chronological progression and personal experiences/examples to portray his message: morality above danger. He explains what these dangers were and how the risks affected him, but, more importantly, Philipp tells the reader of why it was important to continue the resistance and why morality did, indeed, need to stand above danger.
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