Page 502 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo I

502 XXXIX Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

of the surrender of Germany can therefore be seen as a kind of combined operation for
planning “Hour Zero”.
At this point it is necessary to define the term “Hour Zero.” First, the idea of “Hour
Zero” de- scribes one of the oldest desires of mankind – the wish to make a radical cut
with an existing situation and to start again from “zero” – building up something new.
This wish is linked with the concepts of “cause” and “effect” in the ancient philoso-
phy of nature. Thomas Paine, the American political essayist, describes this yearning
for a new beginning and all the emotions involved in his essay “Common Sense”: “We
have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present,
hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birth- day of a new world
2
is at hand.” Although this desire is the oldest variation of the term “Hour Zero,” 3
it had evolved to a truly multidimensional term with relevance in such different disci-
plines like medicine or the military. 4
The most common use of this term originates from the usage of military staffs. Op-
eration “Over- lord,” the Allied amphibious landing on the beaches of Normandy on
5
June 6, 1944 is called in general “D-Day.” The term “D-Day” does not actually refer
to the landing operations on the beaches of Normandy. Its basic meaning is the day on
which a certain military operation 6 moves from the stage of planning to execu-
tion: “D-day is the unnamed day on which a particular operation commences or is to
commence.” 7
For the purposes of this article, “Hour Zero” is defined as the time frame between the
moment, when Allied divisions first set foot on German soil in September 1944 and the

2 Paine, Thomas. Common sense, Rights of man, and other essential writings of Thomas Paine: With an
Introduc- tion by Sidney Hook and a Foreword by Jack Fruchtman Jr. New York: Signet Classic, 2003, p.
59 – 60; see also Ers, Andrus. “Year Zero: The Temporality of Revolution Studied Through the Example of
the Khmer Rouge.” In Rethinking Time: Essays on History, Memory, and Representation. Edited by Hans
Ruin and Andrus Ers, 155–65. Huddinge: Södertörns Högskola, 2011, p.155 – 165, here p. 157

3 See Andrus Ers, “Year Zero: The Temporality of Revolution Studied Through the Example of the Khmer
Rouge,” in Rethinking Time: Essays on History, Memory, and Representation, ed. Hans Ruin and Andrus Ers
(Huddinge: Södertörns Högskola, 2011), 155–65., p. 157 – 158
4 Today in the arts and humanities, the concept of “Hour Zero” is linked with the “end of history” argument

of the philosophers Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Alexandre Kojève. See in detail Andrus Ers, “Year
Zero: The Temporality of Revolution Studied Through the Example of the Khmer Rouge,” in Rethinking
Time: Essays on History, Memory, and Representation, ed. Hans Ruin and Andrus Ers (Huddinge: Södertörns
Högskola, 2011), 155–65., p. 156; see also Fukuyama, Francis. The End of History and the Last Man. New
York, Toronto: Free Press; Maxwell Macmillan Canada; Maxwell Macmillan International, 1992
5 For “Overlord” see in detail Vogel, Detlef. “Deutsche und Alliierte Kriegsführung im Westen.” In Das

deutsche Reich in der Defensive: Strategischer Luftkrieg in Europa, Krieg im Westen und in Ostasien 1943-
1944/45. Ed- ited by Horst Boog, Gerhard Krebs and Detlef Vogel, 419–639. Das Deutsche Reich und der
Zweite Weltkrieg 7. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2001, here p. 502 – 535, see also Atkinson, Rick. The
Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2013, p. 45 – 88

6 For origin and history of the terms “operation” and “operational thinking” see in detail Groß, Gerhard P.
Mythos und Wirklichkeit: Die Entwicklung des operativen Denkens im deutschen Heer von Moltke d.Ä. bis
Heusinger. Zeitalter der Weltkriege 9. Paderborn: Schöningh, 2012

7 Joint Chiefs Staff [Eds.]: Joint Publication 3-02. Amphibious Operations, 10. August 2009, p. III-37, see
also Joint Chiefs Staff [Eds.]: Joint Publication 5-0. Joint Operation Planning, 11. August 2011, p. II-16