Quote of the day
posted at 10:45 pm on June 15, 2008 by Allahpundit
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As the book develops, Buchanan begins to unmask his true colors more and more. It is one thing to make the case that Germany was ill-used, and German minorities harshly maltreated, as a consequence of the 1914 war of which Germany’s grim emperor was one of the prime instigators. It’s quite another thing to say that the Nazi decision to embark on a Holocaust of European Jewry was “not a cause of the war but an awful consequence of the war.” Not only is Buchanan claiming that Hitler’s fanatical racism did not hugely increase the likelihood of war, but he is also making the insinuation that those who wanted to resist him are the ones who are equally if not indeed mainly responsible for the murder of the Jews! This absolutely will not do…
Winston Churchill may well have been on the wrong side about India, about the gold standard, about the rights of labor and many other things, and he may have had a lust for war, but we may also be grateful that there was one politician in the 1930s who found it intolerable even to breathe the same air, or share the same continent or planet, as the Nazis. (Buchanan of course makes plain that he rather sympathizes with Churchill about the colonies, and quarrels only with his “finest hour.” This is grotesque.)…
I myself have written several criticisms of the cult of Churchill, and of the uncritical way that it has been used to stifle or cudgel those with misgivings. (“Adlai,” said John F. Kennedy of his outstanding U.N. ambassador during the Bay of Pigs crisis, “wanted a Munich.”) Yet the more the record is scrutinized and re-examined, the more creditable it seems that at least two Western statesmen, for widely different reasons, regarded coexistence with Nazism as undesirable as well as impossible. History may judge whether the undesirability or the impossibility was the more salient objection, but any attempt to separate the two considerations is likely to result in a book that stinks, as this one unmistakably does.
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I by nature look for the simplest explanation. I’m not really into nuanced depends on what the meaning of is, is.
MB4 on June 16, 2008 at 1:18 AM
No, no. He felt free to attack Russia because he thought his other consolidation plans were in the bag already. The pact with Russia should illustrate clearly in your mind his desire to secure one flank while securing Western Europe.
Spirit of 1776 on June 16, 2008 at 1:18 AM
Well, they may. But my point stands. Britain and France did not declare war to save the Jews, or to save Poland. They did so for what they thought were reasons of their own self interest. And they were badly wrong.
flenser on June 16, 2008 at 1:19 AM
No, that is not what I meant at all…events controlled Wilson, not the other way around…and I do think he was pretty much a weak, muddle-head of a president…TR would have done much better had he won the election.
AUINSC on June 16, 2008 at 1:19 AM
Oh I see. He only wanted to go East. I get it now.
TheBigOldDog on June 16, 2008 at 1:19 AM
Precisely. The argument is predicated on – Hitler was just another guy doing what guys do. He was hungry for war, just as he was hungry to demonstrate the power of the German people.
Spirit of 1776 on June 16, 2008 at 1:20 AM
Read Jonah. Even if you don’t have time to read the whole book, run to the library, sit down and read the chapter on Wilson. I think you’ll be surprised. You won’t be disappointed in the lack of scholarship behind it, so it won’t be a waste of time.
If your point is that they were badly wrong, I don’t see how your point stands at all.
But to the Jews: I don’t think people knew the horrors that were to befall the Jews, so we can’t consider it as a reason for war, pro or con.
Poland: They did fight for Poland. But they allied with Poland, so that alliance was for a reason. So they fought to save Poland, while, yes, already functioning under the belief that alliance with Poland was in there interest.
Heh.
Spirit of 1776 on June 16, 2008 at 1:24 AM
This is spot on. Hitler would not have invaded the Soviet Union until he thought his western front was secure. And it was considering that France was such a pushover, Great Britain was pinned down on it’s own islands and the US was adamantly opposed to war. With or without France and Great Britain declaring war he would have secured his western front by invading France before moving on the Soviet Union.
NotCoach on June 16, 2008 at 1:24 AM
Are you sure? It looked, and still looks like it is coming from AP. Sometimes I have trouble telling those damned atheists apart. They look so much alike.
MB4 on June 16, 2008 at 1:25 AM
There were no “consolidation plans”. Hitler had no interest in war with France and Britain. In fact he feared it. He ended up taking over Western Europe almost by accident, in response the the Allies declaration of war.
You’re kidding me? The pact had nothing to do with Western Europe. Germany was not at war with Western Europe when the pact was signed. It was a “lets divide Poland” pact, that’s all.
(And it’s interesting that the Allies, who supposedly went to war to save Poland, did not also declare war on Russia, which also invaded it.)
flenser on June 16, 2008 at 1:25 AM
And you base this on what? Are there recovered historical documents to that effect? Hitler is on record as not wanting war with Britain.
flenser on June 16, 2008 at 1:27 AM
I am afraid you have a serious misunderstanding of history if you believe this. Hitler was dealing with both sides deceptively in order to at least keep one front passive while he conquered the other. And once he felt he had one front conquered he turned his attentions to the other.
NotCoach on June 16, 2008 at 1:28 AM
I’d like to read the history books you do. Got a title to drop that makes this argument? That’s not at all what I took from my 7th grade history lessons!
VolMagic on June 16, 2008 at 1:28 AM
No. It was because the French are, well, the French. It is a myth that Germany was that much of a “war machine” at the start of WWII, that came later.
MB4 on June 16, 2008 at 1:30 AM
MB4 on June 16, 2008 at 1:25 AM
Yeah. AP is especially tricky with this post. The link is “a book that stinks” on the last line in the post. It takes you to Newsweek and Hitches’ column.
VolMagic on June 16, 2008 at 1:30 AM
Can you explain why not? You don’t think they were badly wrong? You think the war was in their best interests? What?
Funny way of fighting. And they did not object to Russias invasion of Poland at the same time as the German one.
flenser on June 16, 2008 at 1:30 AM
MB4 on June 16, 2008 at 1:30 AM
Touche.
VolMagic on June 16, 2008 at 1:31 AM
LOL. Oh, that wasn’t a joke?
Hitler did reach out to Britain. Hitler admired Churchill and he admired the British. Feared France and Britain? No. No. And one more time for the folks at home, no. He was enraged as a youth at the end of WWI because of the cessation of hostilities, so I’m somehow supposed to by an argument that the next couple of decades somehow morphed his anger not into a desire for revenge, but fear?
Dude. Let me explain deplomacy. YOu negotiate from a postition of strength. If Hitler had invaded France and then when to Russia and said, hey let’s split Poland, Russia would have said – um, actually let’s what and see what happens with France because East Germany looks delicious. He negotiated the pact before he went to war to secure the Eastern front. It’s not that complicated. Seriously, think about it. Same with his pact with Mussolini. Plan, negotiate, then act, not act then try to make deals.
They were trying to turn Russia. Which Hilter did for the allies. Russia and Germany weren’t exactly BFF. Stalin and Hitler could work together though because they saw in each other ambitious men. And I suspect, both thought they could manipulate the other.
Spirit of 1776 on June 16, 2008 at 1:33 AM
The vast majority of Americans, maybe all, and presumably British and French, and most Germans for that matter, did not even know about Hitler’s plans for death camps when WWII started.
MB4 on June 16, 2008 at 1:34 AM
Seriously, you have huge gaping holes in your knowledge of history. France and Great Britain did object to the Soviet invasion but had plans to deal with the Soviets after they dealt with Germany. There were talks of declaring war on both countries immediately but they decided that was too much at once.
NotCoach on June 16, 2008 at 1:35 AM
Yes, it was in their best interests. But so was WWI.
Spirit of 1776 on June 16, 2008 at 1:35 AM
Churchill viewed Russia similar to Italy. He knew that Hilter was the power behind the Gathering Storm and that Russia and Italy were both looking to feast like carrion birds. He was, rightly, much more concerned with the driving force – which was clearly Hitler.
Spirit of 1776 on June 16, 2008 at 1:36 AM
My mom warned me about women who would try to lead me astray, but she didn’t say anything about AP.
MB4 on June 16, 2008 at 1:37 AM
I’m afraid that it is you who has the serious misunderstanding of history. Hitlers plans of conquest were always in the east. He ended up conquering Western Europe almost by accident. It’s surprising how often things like that happen in wars. They very rarely involve people or countries flawlessly executing some master blueprint.
flenser on June 16, 2008 at 1:37 AM
Not very bright of him, if so.
flenser on June 16, 2008 at 1:39 AM
He was right.
Spirit of 1776 on June 16, 2008 at 1:41 AM
Well now there is the exception of Bush’s flawless master blueprint for Iraq, of course.
MB4 on June 16, 2008 at 1:42 AM
You’re joking. My “huge gaping holes” in my knowledge of history don’t prevent me from knowing what it was France and Britain did to “deal with” Germany. Nothing. They sat behind their defences and did nothing. Don’t tell me that they had some grand plan to defeat both Germany and Russia. They had no plan even for dealing with Germany. You’d think that would be a prerequsite for declaring war, but no.
flenser on June 16, 2008 at 1:44 AM
Let me tell you in a nutshell, without having you read tons of books, what caused WWII:
Hitler’s lust for power was the only reason for his invasions and getting rid of the “rich Jews.”
Anyone who stood in his way was crushed.
Hitler represents one of the ultimate examples of power-seekers.
Stalin and others are in the same category.
That’s it.
Don’t believe anything else.
Indy Conservative on June 16, 2008 at 1:45 AM
Battle of France
TheBigOldDog on June 16, 2008 at 1:45 AM
Do you offer anything, other than contrariness? How was he right? How was Russia like Italy? Russia was as evil as Germany, and stronger.
flenser on June 16, 2008 at 1:46 AM
They work when there is no real resistance and nations surrender without hardly a fight. And Germany encountered no real resistance until they bogged down in the East and the US kicked them out of Africa.
NotCoach on June 16, 2008 at 1:46 AM
Again, this if false.
A large part of the reason for Germany’s fall in WWI was the ability of the British to essentially starve them to death. When war was declared, the British immediately sought to re-employ the strategy which has successfully brought Germany to her knees. France mobilized. There were missions to point where it was thought the line of resistance could be held: Norway, for example.
Additionally, tremendous work was done in Egypt and Libya. Work that has extraordinary ramifications later, from forcing Germany to deploy there and in Greece.
Your error, I say as gently as possible, is predicated on the assumption all war is is walking up to your enemy and pulling the trigger. War involves much much more than that. When war was declared, Germany’s war machine had been in operation for years, Britain’s was just starting up again.
Spirit of 1776 on June 16, 2008 at 1:51 AM
Your ignorance does not change the facts of history. An ineffectual campaign carried out by the French and the Brits did not retroactively change their thinking before the war about their future plans of dealing with Germany than Russia.
NotCoach on June 16, 2008 at 1:53 AM
No, I’m much more comfortable offering facts.
They were similar both in capacity, technology, and motive. Both Italy and Russia had less capable military units, they had less developed technology, and they both had the operating motive of preying on another’s efforts. Germany was the real military power at the outset of the war. The threat from Russia and Italy was very much less in significance as the threat manifested and acted upon from Germany.
Spirit of 1776 on June 16, 2008 at 1:54 AM
Oh, I see. I’m simply “ignorant”, but the British and French has some super-duper plans to win the war against Germany, seemingly by boring them to death.
flenser on June 16, 2008 at 1:58 AM
Pat Buchanan is gay.
I don’t trust gay people.
You don’t want to be alone in a room with a gay man, especially not in the airport toilet.
There, some gay bashing for you. Because I feel like it.
On second thought, I think Pat Buchanan should get together with Bob Dole in a Vi@gra commercial.
But here’s the problem:
Who’s gonna be on the top?
Indy Conservative on June 16, 2008 at 2:00 AM
I don’t think you are stupid, but yes, you do appear ignorant. If you read Churchill’s work, you will be happy to find that he is quite elaborate on the plans and operations to defeat Germany. Again, you must realize that at Germany was stronger and therefore smart strategy must be used.
Spirit of 1776 on June 16, 2008 at 2:01 AM
Your facts are wrong, as evidenced by the way it was Russia which took the brunt of the job of defeating Germany. Impressive, for a country with less capable military units and technology.
Actually, the Allies had the greater concentration of military power, as befitted the two greatest empires in the world at the time.
flenser on June 16, 2008 at 2:01 AM
You are confusing two different issues here. Their ineffectual battle plan for dealing with Germany does not change the fact that they had plans to deal with the Soviets after Germany and that they also considered declaring war on the Soviets after they invaded Poland.
NotCoach on June 16, 2008 at 2:02 AM
That’s false also. The war machine has been dismantled because of a reliance on the ability of the League of Nations. Germany’s war machine was much stronger. Moreover, one key advantage, their industry was converted over to make war materials, which is a process that takes some time. Your statement is false.
If Russia was capable of defeating Germany as she came in, she would have. History speaks for itself. She was not. She relied on her weather and geography to serve as a weapon. It was only after the creation of new tanks, and the mass production of these tanks that Russia was able to turn back Germany. I’m seriously beginning to wonder if you have thought any of your argument through.
Spirit of 1776 on June 16, 2008 at 2:05 AM
Can I correct my previous message?
When I said that Pat Buchanan should join Bob Dole in a Vi@gra commercial, I really, really didn’t mean to insult or demean the blind people who lost their sight after taking the magic pill.
So if I offended any deceased Vi@gra-addict senior citizen or any blind person, I beg forgiveness.
But I’m still wondering who’s gonna be on top?
Bob ot Pat?
Indy Conservative on June 16, 2008 at 2:07 AM
You really need to stop digging this hole deeper. The Soviets were just like the US before the war. Poor militaries with outdated equipment. The Germans crushed the Soviets at the start of their eastern campaign but got bogged down when winter came allowing the Soviets to build a military machine to deal with the Germans. And Germany was fighting a war on two fronts once that day came as well.
NotCoach on June 16, 2008 at 2:07 AM
You must realise that you don’t know what you are talking about. Germany was not seen to be stronger at the time. It was actually outnumbered and outgunned. The Allies even had more tanks.
I don’t see the relevence of this. He may have had elaborate plans and operations in his head. The fact remains, the Allies declared war, then sat and waited until the Germans invaded. Nothing Churchill wrote can alter that.
flenser on June 16, 2008 at 2:08 AM
Yeah, after the Zimmermann telegram incident and unrestricted submarine warfare was unilaterally declared…and public opinion turned decidedly toward an American intervention..yes, then he acted.
AUINSC on June 16, 2008 at 1:10 AM
Do you mean the part where Wilson was going against the advice of his party in trying to find a way to ally himself with Britain. Even going so far as to arm US Merchant ships and then staffing them with US Naval crews with orders to fire upon German Submarines when they surfaced to give warning that they were going to fire upon suspected munitions ships? Or are you talking about the food blockade around Germany that killed 100’s of thousands of civilians? I guess Wilson was surprised that the Germans might look unkindly towards his actions?
To the simplistic ones around here. It is a plain fact that had we not put Germany through the ringer after WW1 we very well would not have seen the rise of Hitler. That may indeed be hindsight at work but nevertheless we need to learn lessons like that…the law of unintended consequences is a bitch.
Witness Reagan and Lebanon and the Marines…or Afghanistan and the Mujahaddeen…or Carter and Iran.
PierreLegrand on June 16, 2008 at 2:09 AM
I can’t believe there are still people who are analyzing World War II to this moment.
Idiocy is rampant.
And stupid people believe what other idiots are telling them.
Read my previous comment, it summarizes Hitler’s era.
Indy Conservative on June 16, 2008 at 2:09 AM
You need to stop pretending that you have the faintest idea what you are talking about. The fact is that it was the Russians who defeated Germany, and that Italy could never have done so.
flenser on June 16, 2008 at 2:10 AM
At the start of WWII? That’s a myth. Even more of a myth for the run-up to WWII. Germany actually got a lot of early military/industrial capacity from Czechoslovakia.
MB4 on June 16, 2008 at 2:12 AM
WWI equipment could not handle the modern German machine. Stronger is stronger. Germany was stronger. To the point Goering even boasted the Luftwaffe invincible. And there was no strength on land to stop the blitz. Nor any of the other strength that the Allies depended on, such as Maginot, proved to be relevant strength as Germany was able to swiftly pass through geography that France thought untraversable, which just compounded the problems of the Belgium drive.
The strength the Allies had was two-fold. Britain’s navy and Britain’s geography. Technology, experience, were on Germany’s. She was indisputably stronger, and in the early days, almost unstoppable.
Spirit of 1776 on June 16, 2008 at 2:12 AM
That statement is factually incorrect. The Allies had the stronger military. I’ll dig up the numbers and post them tomorrow.
I don’t have to wonder about you. It’s plain that you’re making stuff up as you go along.
flenser on June 16, 2008 at 2:15 AM
Yes, they got industralial capacity form Cz.
But yes, IT ABSOLUTELY WAS stronger. WWII proved the supremacy of air power, and in air power, Hitler was prophetic. The experience in the Spanish Civil War proved to be telling as it allowed the development that was realistically probably only thwarted by GB’s development of radar.
His advantage in the air was decisive and profound – which made every other little advantage magnified.
Spirit of 1776 on June 16, 2008 at 2:15 AM
Give me one example of a factual error I’ve made here.
Spirit of 1776 on June 16, 2008 at 2:16 AM
I think Hitchens is talking about mythology, not reality, flenser.
Yeah, America and Britain were the towel boy and water boy to the winning Soviet team during WWII (the Soviets killed over 90% of the Nazi troops who died during WWII), but that’s no good, is it?…we have to be heroes…always.
Hitchens is defending America and Britain’s heroic myth of how WWII played out.
alphie on June 16, 2008 at 2:16 AM
Again, for the runup and even start of WWII, that is a myth.
He was a blowhard who fibbed a lot.
MB4 on June 16, 2008 at 2:18 AM
Did you learn your history from children’s books? Because this is the only source I can think of that might skip over what happened between the German invasion of the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union turning the tide.
I have argued for too long here with someone so ill prepared. Good luck.
NotCoach on June 16, 2008 at 2:19 AM
Yes. But he became that because the Luftwaffe was so dominant. His arrogance became their downfall, it’s a common enough story.
Spirit of 1776 on June 16, 2008 at 2:19 AM
I’m done for the night too. Glad you see around, NC.
Spirit of 1776 on June 16, 2008 at 2:22 AM
Could someone please ban the little skinhead flenser?
Aristotle on June 16, 2008 at 2:23 AM
Lets see here…a Newsweak book critique or Pat Buchanan. I have read a lot of newsweak’s magazines and commentaries…and I have read all of Pat’s books…although I havent read his latest.
Since Newsweak always gets it wrong it seems and Pat almost always gets it right…I am guessing that I will be coming down on the side of the brilliant and brave Pat Buchanan.
Roger Waters on June 16, 2008 at 2:25 AM
No he wasn’t prophetic. He even balked for quite some time in giving priority to jets and what we call the V2, until he saw that he was losing and then it was too late.
Germany’s early successes where manly due to having much better Generals at the early part of the war and of course the French.
MB4 on June 16, 2008 at 2:25 AM
Why stop with banning? Why not send him to a concentration camp?
MB4 on June 16, 2008 at 2:28 AM
Naughty, naughty. You will be joining flenser on the train to the concentration camp if you don’t watch out.
MB4 on June 16, 2008 at 2:30 AM
The Soviets certainly did inflict the majority of the German losses, of course they did it with American equipment*, while the Americans and British destroyed German industry and blockaded German ports.
At the end of the war, the Soviet Union was spent and starving. With the lack of western aid, the eastern war could go either way in the 43-44 timeframe.
It might be completely heterodox to do so, but one really can’t justify taking away credit for the victory over the Germans from any of their three main opponents.
*Wiki claims LL accounts for 10-12% of the USSR’s output during the war
18-1 on June 16, 2008 at 2:38 AM
Don’t forget spineless, short sighted neighbors. The Allies could have stopped him easily in 36, and at a much smaller cost in 38 then in 39.
18-1 on June 16, 2008 at 2:42 AM
Closet Nazi sympathizers and History revisionists belong to a type of camp which needs not guards.
Aristotle on June 16, 2008 at 2:43 AM
Funny thing is, I read this Barack is NOT Chamberlin article from Newsweek as well.
I love the piece in the article about apeasement:
Gee, Hitler was THE WORST GUY EVER, and the only guy that we really should have stopped (i.e. NOT Vietnam) except for Stalin murdering millions of course.
It’s really amazing that he writes this just like it’s just another sentence like it’s no big deal.
Oh, and Vietnam, that country that we ’shouldn’t’ have gone into?? ? How about the millions that were killed after we left?? I guess he didn’t want to mention that little fact.
Read this “tingling” for Obama from Newsweek.
HarryStar on June 16, 2008 at 2:48 AM
So you are saying that they should be shot?
BTW, who died and appointed you King?
MB4 on June 16, 2008 at 2:49 AM
Yes, we should never have gone into Vietnam and maybe if Kennedy and LBJ had not been elected we wouldn’t have.
MB4 on June 16, 2008 at 2:59 AM
Actually no. Equipment wise they were actually under-gunned by nearly every nation. What made the difference was that the Germans had better tactics and C3. Simple as that.
Look at their tanks and virtually every French design was better, the Brits were on Par and the Russians had better tanks.
All three lacked the tactics.
The French had piss poor fighters, but the Brits were on par. Yes, the Russians were worse off in the air, but that mostly had to do with the aircraft designer purges that occurred with the military purges.
Tim Burton on June 16, 2008 at 4:01 AM
It wasn’t bad going in there, it was bad not going into North Vietnam. They thought if they did the Chinese would get involved.
What we really should have done, was follow Patton’s advice and drove through to Moscow in ‘45.
Tim Burton on June 16, 2008 at 4:05 AM
Yes, the real issue was that we didn’t follow Patton’s (and to a lesser extent MacArthur’s) advice and push to Moscow.
By bombing raids we kept a HUGE number of Flak 88 canons off of the Eastern Front. They also would have sent a lot more fighters there to deal with the Soviet Air Force.
The Soviets were so spent and starving, through the 50’s, they didn’t even plan for a ground war in Europe. They fully planned on a nuclear exchange. They literally knew they didn’t have the manpower to face our forces. It is also why they kept so many outdated T-34/85s for so long. They were planning on putting 14 year old boys in them to try to over run us where nuclear weapons didn’t stop us.
It wasn’t until the mid-60’s that they started changing their war doctrine to try to steam roller us with conventional weapons.
Tim Burton on June 16, 2008 at 4:15 AM
And the Chinese may well have.
Indochina is devoid of decisive military objectives and the allocation of more than token US armed forces in Indochina would be a serious diversion of limited US capabilities.
- Joint Chiefs of Staff, 26 May 1954
The key to US defeat was a profound underestimation of enemy tenacity and fighting power, an underestimation born of a happy ignorance of Vietnamese history, a failure to appreciate the fundamental civil dimensions of the war, and a preoccupation with the measurable indices of military power and attendant disdain for the ultimately decisive intangibles. In 1965, Maxwell Taylor confessed that “the ability of the Viet Cong continuously to rebuild their units and make good their losses is one of the mysteries of this guerrilla war. We still find no plausible explanation of the continued strength of the Viet Cong”. Four years later, Vo Nguyen Giap commented that the “United States has a strategy based on arithmetic. They question the computers, add and subtract, extract square roots, and then go into action. But arithmetical strategy doesn’t work here. If it did, they’d have already exterminated us.”
The United States could not have prevented the forcible reunification of Vietnam under communist auspices at a morally, materially, and strategically acceptable price.
- US Army War College Quarterly, Winter 1996-97
Maybe, or put less pressure on the Germans and supplied the Russians less so that they could have done it, but by the time Patton made his suggestion America was understandably far too war weary.
MB4 on June 16, 2008 at 4:17 AM
May I point out that Allah didn’t write this. He was quoting it as in QUOTE of the day.
- The Cat
P.S. Carry on.
MirCat on June 16, 2008 at 5:10 AM
Well, it won’t be a month before blogs in the dextrosphere are again quoting Buchanan as if he were some sort of figurehead. Conservatives these days have a short, if not selective, memory. Was nobody listening when he ran for President, and only the rhetoric, not the substance, of his platform differed from David Duke’s?
Buchanan has always been scum. As they say where I’m from, he needs a killin.
rightwingprof on June 16, 2008 at 5:52 AM
I wish people would stop saying Hitler. The Germans followed him into war.
The Germans could have been stopped in 1936 when they moved back into the Rhineland. The German force was very small, and had orders to pull back quickly if challenged. Hitler was not strong and it is likely he would have been deposed.
Hitler considerd the Slavs to be sub-human. Expansion to the East was always planned. Germans were to be transplanted and the Slavs either used as slave labor, deported (to where?) or eliminated. What’s a few more tens, or hundreds, of millions dead. War in the East would not have saved the Jews in that part of the world.
Who is to say that Germany would have broken its back in Russia. Without a West European theatre there would have been no need to have troops in the Middle-East and the Mediteranean. Germany would have had all its forces available to attack East and might well have attacked at a more suitable date.
Nothwithstanding Germany’s intentions in Russia, you have to ask yourself at what stage does the rule of law kick into the equation. Germany breached its agreements under the treaty and was not held accountable. When is it appropriate to hold a country accountable. The Brits and French eventually said this far and no more. The declaration of war was Germany’s doing.
We have many similar occurences to-day. Negotiation is everything and means nothing because agreements are broken with no consequences.
davod on June 16, 2008 at 7:07 AM
“What we really should have done, was follow Patton’s advice and drove through to Moscow in ‘45. Tim Burton on June 16, 2008 at 4:05 AM”
Just how do you propose that we could have done this?
davod on June 16, 2008 at 7:18 AM
But if they had not declared war, there’s an excellent chance they’d not have been taken over, and their Jews shipped to concentration camps.
Gosh, because certainly Czechoslovakia and Austria both remained free and independent states during the 40s, and none of their Jews were shipped off to any camps, right?
Mr. Bingley on June 16, 2008 at 7:35 AM
I always knew he was a Nazi, this just proves it!
flytier on June 16, 2008 at 7:52 AM
I have stopped reading Human Events as long as they continue to promote Pat Buchanan and his evil book.
JimK on June 16, 2008 at 8:10 AM
Playing “what-if’s” with history is fun. (It’s tempting to do it with your life too).
Germany wins WWII, England stays out or sues for peace under Queen Wallis. I’m pretty sure I saw that movie.
JiangxiDad on June 16, 2008 at 8:18 AM
Pat has some things right, but he should stay away from the Holocaust and Nazis. The evil torment and slaughter of God’s Chosen People are disgusting reminders of just how evil mankind can be.
saved on June 16, 2008 at 8:40 AM
Sorry I got into this a little late, but my old memeory is kicking in. I don’t have to refer to the history books. Hitler’s eastern ambitions were purely practical. Deutchland was a resource poor country (inspite of the Rhur and Saar). Invade Take over Austria and Czech for access to the Romanian oil fields and manpower, Invade Poland for the Sileasian coal and to recover Danzig. Push east into the Ukraine the breadbasket of the soviet Union. He couldn’t have soldiers and food at the same time. He did not have American oil, but some Iraqui oil if he could get it home. He went north and allied with Finland which isolated Sweden which gave him access to the Sweedish low phosphorous iron ore that his steel industry had to have because of their process limitations. France and UK declared war on Deutchland and then sat our a “sitzkrieg” until Hitler had his other plans in line. The declaration was merchantilist driven; they did not want the competition so strong. It was not driven at the time because of maudlin feelings for the oppressed.
This is not to give any remote justification, real or moral, to the German actions. Remember, France had invaded Germany many times from before to after Napoleon. Germany was Prussia with an agglomeration of hangers on. After Germany was consolidated in 1878, France started another war with Germany in-which Germany trounced them. In 1914 it happened again to somewhat of a stalemate. A cessation of hostilities (armistice) led to Germany disarming and France not. They them crammed the armistice up the German posterior. That led to the German actions leading to WW2.
Germany was land and border locked, except for the old Hanseatic strip along the Baltic with a small Bremem-Hamburg area in the West. They needed what they called Lebensarum.
Oft times wars are started for reasons frivilous to the survivors, but those reasons can change and become very serious as the war progresses.
Old Country Boy on June 16, 2008 at 11:10 AM
Pat Buchenwald not only is not a historian, he has a warped sense of history. He has a particular soft spot (learned from his Germanophile father) for Hohenzollern Germany.
Hilts on June 16, 2008 at 12:07 PM
Screw the Germans.They were the ones most resposnible for World War I and they were the ones who showed magnanimity with the Treaty of Brest Litovsk, Treaty of Bucharest and Treaty of Frankfort.
Hilts on June 16, 2008 at 12:10 PM
IIRC, GB and France had mutual defense treaties with Poland and were therefore formally at war with Germany when Poland was invaded.
Most of my reading about WWII has been military campaigns, not political (have read Churchill’s bio), so can’t claim to be an expert on the political issues. Germany did have a smaller army and air force than the Western powers, but it was a combat toughened group (Spain and Poland), with better officers, and generally superior equipment. France relied on the Maginot Line and a sizable, but ineffective army.
Snidely Whiplash on June 16, 2008 at 4:15 PM
Don’t worry MD4, in January Jazz will send us all to the camps. He told me so :)
Dawnsblood on June 16, 2008 at 8:36 PM
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