Operation Overlord, the successful World War 11 invasion of German-occupied Europe, by allied forces started with landings in Normandy, France on 6th June 1944. It was an extraordinary logistical exercise with 1,200-planes bombing in advance of 160,000 troops being landed having crossed the English Channel in an amphibious assault involving more than 5,000 vessels. By late August more than two million Allied troops were in France with German forces in retreat. General Dwight Eisenhower was in overall charge with General Montgomery overseeing land forces – there were possibly around half a million casualties in all.
The chart for the initial landing was stark, with a brutal, do-or-die determined Mars Pluto in Leo on the focal point of a Neptune trine Uranus Venus – so no doubting its magnitude or intent. It had been keyed up by the previous January 1944 Solar Eclipse which had a heavily-loaded Air Grand Trine of New Moon in Aquarius trine an explosive Mars Uranus trine Neptune, with the New Moon opposition Pluto. Tr Jupiter in Leo was then exactly conjunct the France Uranus in Leo with freedom in sight.
The Solar Eclipse of July 1944 which occurred during the two-month campaign fell at 27 degrees Cancer, exactly opposition the USA Pluto and conjunct the Germany 10th house Uranus. That was in a Saros Cycle which repeated in September 2016 just before Trump’s election; in August 1998 as the Lewinsky scandal broke leading to Clinton’s impeachment; in August 1980 preceding Reagan’s election; and more significantly in July 1962 which in the aftermath saw the Cuban Missile Crisis erupt (and the death of Marilyn Monroe.) Clearly that Solar Eclipse is in a cycle of major importance for the USA but it won’t repeat in that cycle again until 2034.
What does repeat this year is the Capricorn Lunar Eclipse which in July 1944 fell at exactly the degree of this July’s Lunar Eclipse.
There were Lunar Eclipses at this degree in Capricorn in July 2007 when what was described as the most prominent funeral of all time occurred for Michael Jackson who died in the June.
The preceding one in July 2001 fell just before 9/11 and the Afghanistan War – and Enron bankruptcy.
Before that a same degree Lunar Eclipse in July 1982 oversaw the Falklands War and the Lebanon War.
Another in July 1963 preceded the Martin Luther King ‘I Have a Dream’ speech a few weeks later to a crowd of 250,000, then the largest protest ever seen in Washington, DC.
That it should have a significant and dramatic effect on USA is not surprising given that it is conjunct the US Cancer Sun. The massive Black Lives Matter protests will be part of it.
All marginally complicated but intriguing – eclipses are generally thought to have an effect over several months following.
At a time when people are discussing the legacy of slavery it is perhaps worth pointing out that Nazi Germany had an economy that pretty much depended on forced and slave labour. There were an estimated 13.5 million in that category often forcibly abducted from their homelands. Many such as Slavs and Jews in that category were put on an official path described as Extermination By Work. The Nazis were even on record as abducting neutrals such the sailors on Irish merchant ships and forcing them to toil building submarine pens. And this involvement was not just confined to dead Nazis but to corporations that are very much household names today such as VW, Porsche, AEG, IG Farben and Hugo Boss. If it was not for people like Churchill (for all his faults) and those who fought at D Day then it is a distinct possibility that Europe today would be still be a slave society.
“Another in July 1963 preceded the Martin Luther King ‘I Have a Dream’ speech a few weeks later to a crowd of 250,000, then the largest protest ever seen in Washington, DC.”
One of the “Twitter Historians” I follow made a case on how current events in The US are much more similar to 1963-1964 than 1968 they constantly get compared to.
And for sure, crowd sizes in several demonstrations over the weekend have been impressive.
As a minority myself, I support the Black Lives Matter Movement. I support George Floyd, his family, and all of the other victims (and their families) of police brutality in this country.
Donald Trump and his associates are pure fascists and we have to defeat them this November.
Chris Romero
Jacksonville, Florida
Big events will take place one after another. Massive changes are coming.
July, 1944 is also significant because it was when the last, closest attempt by German anti-Nazis to assassinate Hitler happened to end his evil regime – and it failed with terrible consequences.
Military and civilian conspirators were killed with unspeakable cruelty. Five thousand known anti-Nazis were also executed. The new, planned government would have immediately occupied the concentration and death camps and stopped the Holocaust. Anne Frank’s group would have survived.
The resistance leader whose bomb did not kill Hitler – Claus von Stauffenberg – was a Catholic with a half-Jewish sister-in-law who turned against Hitler before Germany starting losing the war because of the murdering of millions of Jews and Russian POWs. “He who has the courage to do something must know that he will go down in German history as a traitor. If he does not do it, however, he will be a traitor to his conscience.” He described Hitler as “evil incarnate” and said, “We are being tested before God.”
There were, at least, long-term positive consequences for Germany and post-Holocaust Christianity. The Nazis’ killing of so many German opponents at the end of the war convinced the western Allies that Germans were morally capable of self-government, and the first steps towards that were taken in West Germany in 1948.
One of the many morally-motivated anti-Nazi resisters was Lutheran pastor, theologian and Righteous Gentile Dietrich Bonhoeffer. His books and writings – “The Cost of Discipleship” and “Letters from Prison” – are considered Christian classics that inspire to this day. One of his poems, sent to his family and fiancé weeks before his execution, became a comforting German hymn “Von Guten Machten” / “By Gentle Powers”. In 1998, the Queen unveiled at Westminster Abbey statues commemorating 10 Christian martyrs of the 20th century. Bonhoeffer is there along with Martin Luther King Jr. who had actually cited him: “If your enemy has a conscience, follow Gandhi. If your enemy doesn’t have a conscience, follow Bonhoeffer.”