Special anniversary: ​​Vietnam celebrates 50 years end of the war – huge military parade

Vietnam celebrated the end of the Vietnam War 50 years ago with a huge military parade and an air show. In Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), hundreds of thousands of people gathered at night to secure good places and commit the special anniversary. In the morning (local time), 13,000 soldiers marched past the street in front of the reunification palace – one of the city’s symbols – in the morning (local time).

On April 30th 50 years ago, the brutal war ended after almost 20 years with the conquest of the then South Vietnamese capital Saigon through North Vietnamese troops. At the Vietnamese, the war is called “American War” because of the massive intervention by the United States. Troops from the neighboring countries of China, Laos and Cambodia also took part in the parade.

100 years of colonial rule

The Southeast Asian state is a young country: 70 percent of the population were only born after the end of the war. For most, April 30th stands primarily for the reunification and independence of the country – after 100 years of French colonial rule and long separation between north and south.

Since the end of the war, the Communists rule in the one -party state. “After the end of the resistance war against French colonialism, the Vietnamese people like many other peoples in the world wanted a peaceful, independent and free life,” said the Secretary General of the Communist Party, to Lam.

“But the US imperialists quickly replaced the French colonialists by intervening in Vietnam and putting the plan to divide our country into practice.” As a result, the south of the country had temporarily become a “colony of new type”.

What was the war about?

The Vietnam War started in France shortly after Vietnam’s independence. From 1955 there was a war between the communist north with today’s capital Hanoi and the western south. From 1964, the USA intervened in the civil war with air strikes and soil troops to push communism back.

Among other things, Washington used the fire weapon Napalm and highly toxic chemicals such as the plant poison “Agent Orange”. In the following generations, this also led to serious malformations in children, tumors and other diseases.

After global protests and military failures with more than 58,000 dead American soldiers, the United States withdrew from war in 1973. It is still considered one of the most severe military defeats in the country’s history. It is estimated that around three million Vietnamese were killed in the war.

A mega fireworks that are shot down by 30 locations is to illuminate the sky over Ho Chi Minh city in the evening. A gigantic light show with more than 10,000 drones is also planned on Thursday – the largest in the history of Vietnam.