Editorial: It is time to pay for a real defence 80 years later

​Among the stories we report on the 80th anniversary the message from Germany is among the most remarkable.

As our article on page four explains, the country that was defeated in 1945 has again expressed gratitude for the change that VE Day brought. The German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier told parliament: “It was Germans who unleashed this criminal war and dragged all of Europe with them into the abyss.”

He also said that “our profound thanks still go to the allied soldiers and the European resistance movements who [defeated the Nazis].”

The German self analysis in the aftermath of Hitler’s tyranny is one of the most uplifting stories in history. After all, it is hard to think of a regime so barbaric as the Nazi one, in that it was not just brutal but supremely efficient in its war making and mass murder. Yet while there were for years ongoing underground Nazi groups in that country, it quickly turned itself round and the western portion of the country became one of the most dynamic democracies. The Germans soon dominated Europe economically.

There has been a reluctance in that country to rearm properly, something that was not permitted in the aftermath of 1945 and which has still not happened to a level proportionate with such a wealthy country.

The German self honesty has been remarkable. But latterly Germany has symbolised a different sort of western problem – it is so passive militarily that it has, like its European allies, become supremely comfortable and rich but vulnerable to aggressive countries such as Russia.

Britain stood alone in 1940.America later helped our rescue. Now the US will not secure a Europe that won’t pay for its own defence.

Eighty years after VE Day it is time for Europe to fund properly its own militaries.