AS they have just done, the US celebrates Veterans Day every November. Now all leading German parties also want such a “Veteranentag” to honour all those past patriots who wore uniforms, voluntarily or not, and certainly to inspire many more reluctant young men or women to put on boots and shoulder arms.

Not so many may recall that the earlier “Armistice Day” marked the end of World War I. Far fewer know that the kaiser’s abdication and total surrender were basically achieved on November 9 because German navy sailors, soldiers and shipyard workers, led by a communist machinist, joined in a mutiny and strike.

Their revolt even seemed headed toward a socialist revolution — but the leaders of the Social Democratic Party, who had buried all their principles in 1914 by voting for money for the kaiser’s war, to “patriotically save civilised Germany from those tyrannical Russians,” deflected or betrayed all hopes for a major change in 1918-21 with their secret deal with the top brass, who had led and lost the war, and with the profit-swollen but now frightened millionaires.