Posted on 06/20/2008 8:12:50 AM PDT by kellynla
So asks Newsweek's cover, which features a full-length photo of the prime minister his people voted the greatest Briton of them all.
Quite a tribute, when one realizes Churchill's career coincides with the collapse of the British empire and the fall of his nation from world pre-eminence to third-rate power.
That the Newsweek cover was sparked by my book "Churchill, Hitler and The Unnecessary War" seems apparent, as one of the three essays, by Christopher Hitchens, was a scathing review. Though in places complimentary, Hitchens charmingly concludes: This book "stinks."
Understandable. No Brit can easily concede my central thesis: The Brits kicked away their empire. Through colossal blunders, Britain twice declared war on a Germany that had not attacked her and did not want war with her, fought for 10 bloody years and lost it all.
Unable to face the truth, Hitchens seeks solace in old myths.
We had to stop Prussian militarism in 1914, says Hitchens. "The Kaiser's policy shows that Germany was looking for a chance for war all over the globe."
Nonsense. If the Kaiser were looking for a war he would have found it. But in 1914, he had been in power for 25 years, was deep into middle age but had never fought a war nor seen a battle.
From Waterloo to World War I, Prussia fought three wars, all in one seven-year period, 1864 to 1871. Out of these wars, she acquired two duchies, Schleswig and Holstein, and two provinces, Alsace and Lorraine. By 1914, Germany had not fought a war in two generations.
Does that sound like a nation out to conquer the world?
As for the Kaiser's bellicose support for the Boers, his igniting the Agadir crisis in 1905, his building of a great fleet, his seeking of colonies in Africa, he was only aping the British, whose approbation and friendship he desperately sought all his life and was ever denied.
In every crisis the Kaiser blundered into, including his foolish "blank cheque" to Austria after Serb assassins murdered the heir to the Austrian throne, the Kaiser backed down or was trying to back away when war erupted.
Even Churchill, who before 1914 was charging the Kaiser with seeking "the dominion of the world," conceded, "History should ... acquit William II of having plotted and planned the World War."
What of World War II? Surely, it was necessary to declare war to stop Adolf Hitler from conquering the world and conducting the Holocaust.
Yet consider. Before Britain declared war on him, Hitler never demanded return of any lands lost at Versailles to the West. Northern Schleswig had gone to Denmark in 1919, Eupen and Malmedy had gone to Belgium, Alsace and Lorraine to France.
Why did Hitler not demand these lands back? Because he sought an alliance, or at least friendship, with Great Britain and knew any move on France would mean war with Britain -- a war he never wanted.
If Hitler were out to conquer the world, why did he not build a great fleet? Why did he not demand the French fleet when France surrendered? Germany had to give up its High Seas Fleet in 1918.
Why did he build his own Maginot Line, the Western Wall, in the Rhineland, if he meant all along to invade France?
If he wanted war with the West, why did he offer peace after Poland and offer to end the war, again, after Dunkirk?
That Hitler was a rabid anti-Semite is undeniable. "Mein Kampf" is saturated in anti-Semitism. The Nuremberg Laws confirm it. But for the six years before Britain declared war, there was no Holocaust, and for two years after the war began, there was no Holocaust.
Not until midwinter 1942 was the Wannsee Conference held, where the Final Solution was on the table.
That conference was not convened until Hitler had been halted in Russia, was at war with America and sensed doom was inevitable. Then the trains began to roll.
And why did Hitler invade Russia? This writer quotes Hitler 10 times as saying that only by knocking out Russia could he convince Britain it could not win and must end the war.
Hitchens mocks this view, invoking the Hitler-madman theory.
"Could we have a better definition of derangement and megalomania than the case of a dictator who overrules his own generals and invades Russia in wintertime ... ?"
Christopher, Hitler invaded Russia on June 22.
The Holocaust was not a cause of the war, but a consequence of the war. No war, no Holocaust.
Britain went to war with Germany to save Poland. She did not save Poland. She did lose the empire. And Josef Stalin, whose victims outnumbered those of Hitler 1,000 to one as of September 1939, and who joined Hitler in the rape of Poland, wound up with all of Poland, and all the Christian nations from the Urals to the Elbe.
The British Empire fought, bled and died, and made Eastern and Central Europe safe for Stalinism. No wonder Winston Churchill was so melancholy in old age. No wonder Christopher rails against the book. As T.S. Eliot observed, "Mankind cannot bear much reality."
Exactly. Operation Barbarossa kicked off almost 6 weeks late because Hitler refused to start the invasion while the British were mucking around in Greece. He wanted to remove that "thorn in his side" before going ahead with Barbarossa. Guderian and OKH told him not to worry about it.
The invasion still could have met its time-table, but halfway to Moscow, Army Group center was diverted south to the Ukrain. By the time Army Group Center was back on track and moving on Moscow, it was too late to take Moscow before winter set in.
Commenting on Hitler's interference with the plans for the invasion of Russia, Heinz Guderian said, "I could never have believed that a really brilliant military position could be so screwed up in two months."
In retrospect, perhaps the most important allied effort early in the war was the attempt to help Greece against the Nazi invasion. In purely military terms on the ground, it was a failure. But it delayed Operation Barbarossa for a critical period and may have been the action that won the war. A successful operation Barbarossa may well have knocked Russia out of the war as it was intended to do. At the very least, it would have extended the war for several more years.
Jews invented communism? The word communism was coined in 1840 by John Goodwyn Barmby in reference to followers of the French revolution era Grachus Babeuf. Marx himself was the son of converted Jews who was himself quite anti-semitic. And 1920s Berlin was one of the cultural capitals of Europe filled with great writers and musicians.
Sounds like PJB is blaming Churchill for the Holocaust. He is deranged.
“But I wonder what the general reaction would be to an enthusiastic, unabashed call to freepers to expunge Pat Buchanan from conservatism. Thoughts?”
I don’t know; I am composing my emails now.
I ask others to join in.
Pat gives conservatives a bad name, and needs to go away. He does not represent conservatives and should not be used as our voice.
Can I get second? (Or a third, as I think Huck is my second.)
I have seen claims that World Net Daily is associated with alleged cult leader Roy Masters. I don’t know if that’s true, but WND has never impressed me.
High volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel, WOT
..................
The Holocaust was not a cause of the war, but a consequence of the war. No war, no Holocaust.
That's true, the treatment of Jews wasn't a cause of the war, though in retrospect most American's consider the nature of the Nazi as clear evidence of the evil we were confronting. Discarding it's relevance one must accept several things. That the pre-war treatment of Jews under the Nuremburg laws was just fine. For Jews, no citizenship, removal from jobs, pensions, loss of property. Not much to criticize there Pat, and certainly no hint as to what was to come. The slaughter of political dissidents, that's fine. So much for criticism of Stalin on that score. Can't criticize the gulags if you accept the Nazi camp system. Homosexuals, the retarded, heck, they should die.
Of course underlying Pat's worldview is the fact that Europe, East and West, under the Reich for a millenia would be preferable to a free Western Europe, the East under the Communist heel for 4 decades.
There is a whole book on the topic, To Eliminate the Opiate, by Orthodox Jewish Rabbi and Chief Justice of the Supreme Rabbinical Court of the United States, Marvin S Antelman. I suggest you read it.
Right. It was in the Med. The Brits controlled the Med.
I someone had shot the Kaiser before WWI, Hitler and Stalin may have been irrelevant.
Marx was instructed in communism by Reform Rabbi Moses Hess. See post 87.
Woodrow Wilson put two words out and the Nationalists believed him. Those two words are dogging us to this day: self determination.
I’ve read Mein Kampf.
He didn’t want to rule the world, he just wanted to rule Europe, and wanted to arrange for Japan to rule Asia and the USA to rule the western hemisphere. England, being isolated by water (he was a hydrophobe), was to be left alone as a self-governing fluke.
He laid out his plans. Yes, the Holocaust was intended. No, he did not want to take over the world, just the whole of Europe.
Although the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion is a proven fraud, the answer is yes. See post 87.
They were treated in a way Pat would consider appropriate for a sovereign power. Strip them of citizenship, employment, and property. Nothing wrong with that is there? As I heard him comment on a radio show, it's bad, the Arabs did it too and no one complained.
I just posted a vanity on the subject. Maybe we can at least get a freeper discussion going on it and see what happens.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2033917/posts
Hopefully it doesn’t become a flame war/dustup.
If Adolph had passed his college painting class, he would have been a forgotten artist.
Buchanan is a very warped fellow.
Yeah. Living an hour's drive from the REAL San Francisco, makes me want to overthrow the US government, take over the whole world, and kill all the Jooooooooooos.
Crystal(nacht) clear reasoning there, Carrie
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.