Che Guevara

Che Guevara, also known as “El Che” or just “Che” was born June 14, 1928, was an Argentine Marxist Revolutionary and an important figure during the Cuban revolution. He was a very intelligent man and had many professions such as a physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, and much more. After he was murdered in the jungles of Bolivia in 1967, Guevara became a global icon within pop culture. Even to this day, people still recognize him by wearing T-shirts with his face on them. Many people view Guevara as a hero, but was he really a hero or an extremely radical communist revolutionary?
While he was a young college student studying medicine, Guevara traveled through Latin America and witnessed things that would change his views forever. During these trips he was transformed by the extreme poverty that he observed. The conclusion that he came to was that the poverty in these regions was the result of monopoly capitalism, neocolonialism, and imperialism. Guevara believed that the only way to end the poverty was a world revolution. Ever since he saw the poverty that people had to live in, Guevara became dedicated to make life better for the poor people. He was very militaristic and thought that things were resolved by war and fighting and had a very radical point of view.
Guevara left his job as a doctor and joined Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro in Mexico. While living in Mexico, Guevara, Castro, and eighty other men and women traveled to Cuba where they would try to overthrow the government of General Fulgencio Batista. This movement would later be called the July 26 Movement. Guevara and the rest of the army planned to set up camp in the mountains of Sierra Maestra but on their way they were attacked by government troops and stripped of weapons and many men and women were killed. After the attack, they were left with only sixteen men and twelve weapons to share between them.
Eventually, after many months of scrounging for weapons and ammo in isolated army garrisons, Che and his small army were able to collect their supply of weapons and take control of more and more territory. The territory that they did have control of was distributed evenly among peasants that were homeless and treated unfairly. To thank Guevara, Castro, and his soldiers, the peasants helped in the guerrillas (or battles) against Batista. In addition, some peasants even joined the army in order to defeat Batista’s soldiers.
Castro and Guevara’s army succeeded in overthrowing Batista and proceeded to pass new laws that benefited the peasants and gave them land that was previously owned. In doing this, it was a good thing to do for the poor and for the leaders, but for other citizens who were middle and high class, it was not good news. In some people’s eyes, Che Guevara was a hero who stood up for people that were less fortunate. For others he is a radical communist because he took away from people that had land, money, and a home.

The Battle of the bulge

Near the end of the war, Germany was determined to split up and defeat the Allies. On December 16th 1944, the Nazis started a battle with the Allies because Hitler had convinced himself that the alliance between Britain, France, and America was not strong enough to defeat the Nazis. Most of the German military including Field Marshall Gerd von Rundstedt did not believe that it was a wise decision to start the battle, but Hitler insisted that it had to happen. The battle was previously known as Ardennes Offensive, but because the first attack created a bulge in the Allied frontline, it became more commonly known as the Battle of the Bulge.



The Nazis had the advantage at the beginning of the battle because the weather was in their favor and they had a plan but the advantages did not last for long. When the battle began, they did not have enough fuel or resources to start the battle in the first place so what was the point of Hitler insisting on it? Hitler knew that they were losing the war and needed to gain more land or else Germany would surely lose, so he took a gamble. They would go ahead and attack the allies even with the small supply of fuel that they had and risk losing the war and tens of thousands of men, or they would succeed in splitting up the allies, win the battle, and accomplish their goal.
The big attacks that the Nazis were planning required tons of fuel of which they did not have. This is another reason that Hitler’s plan could not have worked in the first place. Even if the Germans had fuel and resources to keep moving forward, they still had no chance because the Allied forces kept bombing their supplies and they would have ended up running out of fuel anyways.
By January of 1945 the Nazi army was in such lack of fuel that they ended up having to abandon their vehicles and travel back to Germany on foot. This was a very big mistake because many of the men died just trying to get back to Germany and instead of gaining land, they backpedaled and lost it.
Ultimately, Hitler’s idea that Germany could defeat the Allies was not possible. Hitler had gotten very overconfident and sure that they could defeat whomever they fought when it was really just false hope. Hitler had gotten so overconfident in fact to the point that he had become delusional. While he believed that this battle would destroy the allies and split them up, it really unified them because they all had the same motive: to destroy the Nazis. An example of the Allies coming together and really striving to defeat the Nazis is a man who fought for Belgium named D’Haese who says “We were doing sabotage to the Germans, like cutting the communications lines…we waited and we prayed for the Americans”. This is a quote of someone who was desperate for the war to be over and shows that the Allies did anything they had to in order to defeat Nazi Germany.
The German decision to attack the Allies was a huge mistake on Hitler’s part because he decided to attack when they were at a very weak state and lacking many components of war. This poor decision was a very big factor that played a huge part in the fall of Nazi Germany.
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