The German campaign of conquering Britain

[Doppleganger]

What would it have mattered Chamberlain was PM when WW2 broke out and when Russia invaded Poland therefore this is a somewhat nonstarter of a question.
But for the sake of argument I believe Britain would have sent troops in support Finland as was their intention.

Well IMO if Churchill was astute as both you and I believe that's the last thing he would have done. For reasons of practicality he had to align himself to either one or the other of the totalitarian superstates in Europe. If he aligned against Stalin in 1940 then that would leave him possibly with the only option of siding with Hitler in the future. Plus, going against Stalin would go against the grain of past British foreign policy.

 

[Ollie Garchy]

POST MOVED TO ANOTHER THREAD

 

[MontyB]

Well IMO if Churchill was astute as both you and I believe that's the last thing he would have done. For reasons of practicality he had to align himself to either one or the other of the totalitarian superstates in Europe. If he aligned against Stalin in 1940 then that would leave him possibly with the only option of siding with Hitler in the future. Plus, going against Stalin would go against the grain of past British foreign policy.

Its an interesting point but it is also another reason to believe that Britain and France did not expect war with Germany as it is quite clear that Allied troops were being prepared to support Finland and I think the British opinion toward Russia is made apparent by Chamberlains comments in Jan 1940 that "Finland is fight against the forces of unscrupulous violence". So if we assume Britain did not want war with both Russia and Germany simultaneously and yet they were prepared to support Finland against Russia that to me would indicate they believed settlement could be reached with Germany as late as 1940. (see how easy it is to make huge leaps)

 

[Ollie Garchy]

Its an interesting point but it is also another reason to believe that Britain and France did not expect war with Germany as it is quite clear that Allied troops were being prepared to support Finland and I think the British opinion toward Russia is made apparent by Chamberlains comments in Jan 1940 that "Finland is fight against the forces of unscrupulous violence". So if we assume Britain did not want war with both Russia and Germany simultaneously and yet they were prepared to support Finland against Russia that to me would indicate they believed settlement could be reached with Germany as late as 1940. (see how easy it is to make huge leaps)

No! If this had been the case, and it wasn't, Britain would have declared war on the USSR for the invasion of Poland. After Poland and Finland, the USSR invaded:

1. Estonia
2. Latvia
3. Lithuania
4. Rumania (annexed Bessarabia)

In the case of 1-3, the British did not care. In the case of 4, they had whipped up war hysteria against Germany in early 1939 on the rumour that Germany was about to invade. In the case of the USSR, Britain did nothing.

Doppleganger's question is, however, an interesting question often debated by historians.

 

[Del Boy]

Ollie - you wriggler -you really are an outrageous chancer.
My 6 questions are the start of my search to find exactly what point you are trying to make, not the finish.

Do you accept that my translation of your wordy replies to my 6 questions is correct or not?

Simple enough. Doesn't need much effort to answer yes or no. No brain surgery. Just straightforwardness without wriggling. A yes or no. Then we can proceed.

Or would you rather debate fitness, drunkeness, and anything but Hitler's regime and its evil policies? Don't be so emotional.


COMAND THE FUTURE, CONQUER THE PAST.

 

[Del Boy]

Well I don't know about that Del Boy. Governments/Leaders have been doing the sorts of things Hitler was accused of in 1939 for centuries. The real evil of the Nazi regime (the evil for which it is now rightly demonised and vilified) was not known in 1939 as the vast majority of it hadn't taken place yet.



I await your responses to my answers.

Doppleganger

I will respond to them just as soon as Ollie will agree, as you have, that he does hold with those arguments. The questions were dranw from an attempt to unravel from all his posts the gist of what he is trying to establish. I do not want to waste time dealing with them and find that he is onto something entirely different. Already we have diversions of fatness, drunkeness and racism, which I must say is ironic.

I simply invited you to take part because of your interest so I could deal with it once.

If Ollie will just do what you did then I can get on.


COMMAND THE FUTURE,CONQUER THE PAST.

 

[MontyB]

No! If this had been the case, and it wasn't, Britain would have declared war on the USSR for the invasion of Poland. After Poland and Finland, the USSR invaded:

1. Estonia
2. Latvia
3. Lithuania
4. Rumania (annexed Bessarabia)

In the case of 1-3, the British did not care. In the case of 4, they had whipped up war hysteria against Germany in early 1939 on the rumour that Germany was about to invade. In the case of the USSR, Britain did nothing.

Doppleganger's question is, however, an interesting question often debated by historians.

I disagree I assume at this point even Doppleganger accepts that the British/French governments knew it would have been a huge mistake to force Germany and Russia into an active alliance which is what declaring war on both of them would have done.
It would therefore be illogical for them to be sending 30000 troops to aid Finland knowing that it would bring them into direct confrontation with Russia if they did not believe that peace with Germany was still possible or at least the status quo could be maintained.

Now as for Hitlers designs on Europe well I would suggest that this quote from a speech on January 30 1940 quite clearly spell out his aims.
"For 300 years England pursued the aim of preventing a real consolidation of Europe, just as France sought for centuries to prevent a consolidation of Germany"

So I believe the situation at the end on January 1940 (four months after war had been declared) is that you have Britain and France still believing some sort of non-military outcome was attainable with Germany and that Russia was greater threat meanwhile you have Hitler making speeches about the "consolidation" of Europe.

 

[Ollie Garchy]

I disagree I assume at this point even Doppleganger accepts that the British/French governments knew it would have been a huge mistake to force Germany and Russia into an active alliance which is what declaring war on both of them would have done.
It would therefore be illogical for them to be sending 30000 troops to aid Finland knowing that it would bring them into direct confrontation with Russia if they did not believe that peace with Germany was still possible or at least the status quo could be maintained.

Now as for Hitlers designs on Europe well I would suggest that this quote from a speech on January 30 1940 quite clearly spell out his aims.
"For 300 years England pursued the aim of preventing a real consolidation of Europe, just as France sought for centuries to prevent a consolidation of Germany"

So I believe the situation at the end on January 1940 (four months after war had been declared) is that you have Britain and France still believing some sort of non-military outcome was attainable with Germany and that Russia was greater threat meanwhile you have Hitler making speeches about the "consolidation" of Europe.

You don't understand:

(1) that Germany and Russia already had a special relationship in 1939...they both divided E. Europe into spheres.

(2) that Hitler sent peace proposals to Britain/France and then just Britain during this period. They were turned down by the British government. Incidentally, the Germans even proposed vacating Poland.

(3) that the issue of Finland is less important than that of Poland...at least in discussing WWII origins.

(4) that none of this has anything to do with explaining why Britain declared war on Germany --Why? Because they wanted to stop a German-Soviet alliance? What is your point?

Here are two more things:

(1) Your point on the "consolidation" of Europe is so poorly written that I cannot understand you.

(2) Tell me how many people Hitler killed between January 1933 and September 1939. Then tell me how many people Stalin killed between 1923 and 1939. Then tell me how many people the British government killed between 1919 and 1939. The answer, provided you do a fair search, will shock you.

I am actually going to work on the last question because it interests me. It is going to take me a while and I am busy tomorrow...so it will take a while.

There is a reason for my question. You have stated that the British attacked Germany because Germany was "bad". I hypothesize that the Russian murder statistics will be in the range of millions, the British in the tens of thousands, as will the German statistic. If this proves true, your moral argument falls to pieces. The British policy of aggression, I predict, will become more and more dependent on assumptions of future German action. I also predict the following scale: (civilian murders)

Civilian Murders attributed to Governments for Interwar Period.

1. Russia
2. Japan
3. Italy
4. United States
5. Britain
6. Germany
6. France

If so, I will have found another interesting way of analysing WWII origins.

Hey Doppleganger, how does this approach sound to you? Do you want to give it a shot?

a) Russia and Japan are easy.
b) Italy is based on Abyssinia, internal actions, etc.
c) US is based on lynching (Black & Native) and military actions. (might fall to fifth)
d) Britain is based on Naval Blockade of Germany, Iraq plus other colonial actions. (Britain will probably rise to number 2)
e) Germany is easy.
f) France is hard...suspect colonial activities.

[I suspect that the peanut gallery will continue to use the 30 million number for Germany, so re-read the question until you understand it. Then go ahead and post the 30 million number.]

I know that you guys don't want any of my sources or even ideas. If that is the case, just ignore all of my posts from now on. Just act like I am not here. Respond to the posts of others...just not mine. I can easily live with that.

 

[Del Boy]

Ollie

In order to ascertain precisely what you were trying to prove, I put to you 6 questions drawn from your previous posts, and which appeared to be the basis of what you were complaining about. I asked you only to answer in one word, because you attempt to swamp us with the size and wordiness of your posts, amking the subject so cumbersome.

You appear to object to my interpretation of each answer as in the affirmative, and have avoided so far a yes or no to my request for clarity.

THE ABOVE IS FACT.

So here we go regarding the basis of your argument.

1. You hold that America wanted WW11.

However, you base this on , NOT FACT, but on someone’s well established THEORY and refer to ABOUT half of the American people.

2. You hold that America was responsible for WW11.

However, you base this on the THEORIES of SOME HISTORIANS.


3. You hold that Britain wanted WW11.

But you show no basis for your assessment of the feelings of the people of Britain. Furthermore this is your theory on thefac only that Britain found war with Hitler unavoidable, not desirable.

4.You hold that Britain was responsible for WW11

You put forward no argument for this.


5..You hold that Hitler’s regime was not evil.

Only a little bit, and no worse than others? . But you admit to the ‘LIMITED’ evil of only killing COMMUNISTS, SOCIALISTS, LEFT-WING NAZIS, PRIESTS, HOMOSEXUALS, AND THE HANDICAPPED, PRIOR TO 1939!

Oh – well I guess that’s allright then.


6. You protest that have not claimed that Britain was unaware of the evil of Hitler’s regime until after the outbreak of WW11. But I believe you have. And you have put it forward as proof that Britain decision to go to war was in no way affected by such.

News for you – they certainly did know of the horrors of the Nazi regime, although of course worse was to come, and were affected by it.



So there we have it.

NOT A FACT AMONG THE LOT. A MESS OF CONVENIENT THEORIES. A HANDFUL OF CHAFF BLOWING IN THE WIND. THE TWISTING OF HISTORY IN THE MAKING.

NOW - would you like me to give you some FACT on each of the above.




COMMAND THE FUTURE, CONQUER THE PAST.

 

[MontyB]

You don't understand:

(2) that Hitler sent peace proposals to Britain/France and then just Britain during this period. They were turned down by the British government. Incidentally, the Germans even proposed vacating Poland.

Do you seriously think that the Allies were going to give Germany a peace agreement on German terms knowing full well that they had never stuck any agreement in the previous 3 years?

(3) that the issue of Finland is less important than that of Poland...at least in discussing WWII origins.

Only because it doesn't suit your argument.

(4) that none of this has anything to do with explaining why Britain declared war on Germany --Why? Because they wanted to stop a German-Soviet alliance? What is your point?

No because Germany simply stepped over the line and please it was Britain and France that declared war on Germany so please if you want to go around playing the smug intellectual at least accept that everyone knows why the Allies declared war on Germany, there may be varying reasons and positions that contributed to the declaration but specific trigger remains the same.

Here are two more things:

(1) Your point on the "consolidation" of Europe is so poorly written that I cannot understand you.

I would suggest that it is your failing as I seriously doubt many others have trouble interpreting it.

(2) Tell me how many people Hitler killed between January 1933 and September 1939. Then tell me how many people Stalin killed between 1923 and 1939. Then tell me how many people the British government killed between 1919 and 1939. The answer, provided you do a fair search, will shock you.

Who cares, war wasn't declared because Hitler killed 25 more people than Stalin.

There is a reason for my question. You have stated that the British attacked Germany because Germany was "bad". I hypothesize that the Russian murder statistics will be in the range of millions, the British in the tens of thousands, as will the German statistic. If this proves true, your moral argument falls to pieces. The British policy of aggression, I predict, will become more and more dependent on assumptions of future German action. I also predict the following scale: (civilian murders)

No the Allies declared war on Germany because it invaded Poland full stop, it had nothing what so ever to do with who was "most evil" Stalin or Hitler you can paint Stalin anyway you like and chances are I will agree that he was just another psychotic dictator who slaughtered people in their millions and I am of the opinion that up until the German invasion of the west the Allies saw him as the greater of the two evils but the reason for the declaration of war hinged solely on one point.

 

[Del Boy]

Ollie.

now for some real FACT, whether you want it or not.

FACT 1.


3 september 1939.

At dawn on I September Hitler’s armies invaded Poland. In accordance with the British and French governments’ guarantee to Poland, on 2 september an ultimatum was issued demanding Germany’s withdrawal and respect of Poland’s sovereignty. At 11.15 on 3 september the british prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, announced in his melancholy voice that the ultimatum had expired without any reply being received from Germany and that, consequently, Britain was at war with germany. After an air-raid warning, which proved false, the House met in early afternoon and Churchill made his last speech from the back-benches.

Following the debate Chamberlain invited Churchill to become First Lord of the Admiralty. At 6pm he took up his post and the signal was flashed to the fleet: ‘Winston is back’! As he later wrote in The gathering storm:’ So it was that I came again to the room I had quitted in pain and sorrow almost a quarter of a century before…. Once again we must fight for life and honour against all the might and fury of the valiant, disciplined and ruthless German race. Once again! So be it!’


COMMAND THE FUTURE, CONQUER THE PAST.

 

[Doppleganger]

NOW - would you like me to give you some FACT on each of the above.

I would like to see some 'facts' from you Del Boy. So far, all you've done is dismiss someone else's argument without any counter-arguments or facts to back up your own position. You've provided no links to support your viewpoint and anybody can shout someone else down, that's easy and childish. I was astonished and amused to see that you attacked Ollie for basing one of his arguments "on the THEORIES of SOME HISTORIANS." Del Boy this is ludicrious - there are no other words for it. Don't you realise how much of the 'facts' we rely on are based on theory?

Anyway, I'll leave Ollie to defend his own position which he is more than capable of doing. Meanwhile I await with bated breath your response to my one word answers to your questions that I was good enough to provide you.

 

[senojekips]

My next nomination for the Nobel Peace and Entertainment Prize.

Happy Adolph.
Playing, "Just Trust Me"
Ably backed by
Freddy Nietzsche
and his amazing
"New World Theories".

 

[perseus]

The view that Hitler wasn’t primarily responsible for the war was popularised by the distinguished historian AJP Taylor. He claimed that Hitler’s actions were caused by the international situation and by the responses of other European leaders and his ranting’s in Mein Kampf should be taken with a pinch of salt. However, the best way to get noticed as an historian is to hold a contrary theory and express some controversial views. I recall his theory of the reasons behind WW1 was based on railway timetables! (These cannot be used to mobilise against 2 sides at once, therefore you have to knock out the quicker potential opponent first)

The problem with Taylor’s WW2 theory is that Hitler confirmed his intentions in an address to the leading generals of the army, given within days of becoming chancellor. He spoke of ‘the conquest of new living space in the east and its ruthless Germanisation’. To achieve this there would be a complete reversal of the current situation at home: ‘the most stringent authoritarian regime, removal of the cancer of democracy…….total extermination of Marxism’. There would be re-armament, military training for all, and pacifism would be completely expunged. It was to be war at home and abroad
http://www.orange.k12.oh.us/teachers/ohs/tshreve/apwebpage/readings/hitlerstresseman.html

In Hitler's War and the German Economy: A Reinterpretation. R J Overy says that pre-war planning in Germany was in fact for a long war and for a high level of mobilisation rather than a short Blitzkrieg that was the common assumption. He supports this view with economic data suggesting that by 1939 military spending was 23 per cent of gross national product compared with 3 per cent in 1913. By 1939 a quarter of the German workforce were working on direct orders for the armed forces and half or more of the German economy was devoted to war or war-related products. This suggests that Hitler had a general long term plan, directed towards the East. True he had little desire in having war with Britain and France. He grossly miscalculated their reaction to the invasion of Poland. However, Chamberlain had little choice but to declare war after the failure of Munich or else he would have been ridiculed and replaced. By 1939 Churchill was becoming more influential, but he was still recovering from his wilderness years and the general attitude was one of apathy.

AJP Taylor also claimed that as an international statesman Hitler wasn’t all that bad compared to his contemporaries. Certainly he was no worse when compared to Stalin and perhaps many colonial leaders prior to the 20th century. Compared to ancient warlords his antics certainly wouldn’t cause much of a stir. For example, Genghis Kahn killed nearly three million in an act of genocide. Alexander the Great, after the capture of Tyre crucified an enormous numbers of the defenders, yet he is seen today only as a great commander. However, we cannot excuse Hitler because he didn’t quite top the table of tyrants, he was still quite awful by modern standards. The difference is that he was in charge of a large nation and therefore the magnitudes of atrocities were, with the exemption of Stalin, substantially greater.

 

[Ollie Garchy]

The difference is that he was in charge of a large nation and therefore the magnitudes of atrocities were, with the exemption of Stalin, substantially greater.

Give me a number on Hitler's atrocities Jan 1933-1 Sept 1939. Making the claim of vast murders is easy. Using this claim as a basis to rationalize a declaration of war is also easy.

How about the functionalist view? The war itself combined with a particular ideology and led to Nazi barbarism? In this case, the war itself became an important issue that cannot be easily discounted.

Perseus, I appreciate your comments, and I will try to deal with them when I have more time.

One thing though, and this is written very quickly, Overy's argument is a good one. I agree with most it -- other than the supposed devotion of one-quarter of GDP for military expenditures. Overy is lumping capital goods investments and such projects as the "Autobahnen" into the military sphere.

But British politicians believed another in 1939. That is, they believed in the "Blitzkrieg" notion of breadth not depth. If we want to understand WWII origins, this false notion has to be dealth with -- and the issue of why.

 

[Del Boy]

I would like to see some 'facts' from you Del Boy. So far, all you've done is dismiss someone else's argument without any counter-arguments or facts to back up your own position. You've provided no links to support your viewpoint and anybody can shout someone else down, that's easy and childish. I was astonished and amused to see that you attacked Ollie for basing one of his arguments "on the THEORIES of SOME HISTORIANS." Del Boy this is ludicrious - there are no other words for it. Don't you realise how much of the 'facts' we rely on are based on theory?

Anyway, I'll leave Ollie to defend his own position which he is more than capable of doing. Meanwhile I await with bated breath your response to my one word answers to your questions that I was good enough to provide you.

Don't be ridiculous Doppleganger - Ollie is always describing his position as FACT.

If you are following you will see that I have pointed out the weaknesses of his replies to my 6 questions and I have started dealing with them. Haven't you read my first FACT post, 3 Sep 07. How could you miss it - unless you wanted to . Not carefully avoiding fact like Ollie, are you?

 

[Del Boy]

Give me a number on Hitler's atrocities Jan 1933-1 Sept 1939. Making the claim of vast murders is easy. Using this claim as a basis to rationalize a declaration of war is also easy.

How about the functionalist view? The war itself combined with a particular ideology and led to Nazi barbarism? In this case, the war itself became an important issue that cannot be easily discounted.

Perseus, I appreciate your comments, and I will try to deal with them when I have more time.

One thing though, and this is written very quickly, Overy's argument is a good one. I agree with most it -- other than the supposed devotion of one-quarter of GDP for military expenditures. Overy is lumping capital goods investments and such projects as the "Autobahnen" into the military sphere.

But British politicians believed another in 1939. That is, they believed in the "Blitzkrieg" notion of breadth not depth. If we want to understand WWII origins, this false notion has to be dealth with -- and the issue of why.

A lot of non-factual tripe here again. I will deal with it on my return. Ollie - you cannot hypnotise all of the people all of the time.

 

[Doppleganger]

Don't be ridiculous Doppleganger - Ollie is always describing his position as FACT.

If you are following you will see that I have pointed out the weaknesses of his replies to my 6 questions and I have started dealing with them. Haven't you read my first FACT post, 3 Sep 07. How could you miss it - unless you wanted to . Not carefully avoiding fact like Ollie, are you?

I assume you mean 03 Sep 39 and as you stated your fact without any contextual framework it is hard to understand what relevance it has. I will make another assumption and say that it relates to who started WWII, a main focus of your 6 questions. If so, then why do you think it was that Britain and France declared war on Germany over Poland when there was practically nothing they could do to guarantee Poland's independence? If you give me the emotive answer 'to stop Hitler's evil' then you aren't thinking properly about the underlying reasons, which has been your problem all along.

 

[Padre]

Doppleganger
Now you rascal, please don't roll a hand grenade in here regarding abortion, when this is highly charged enough already. We just don't need that, and i feel it has already been emphatically done on this forum. We want some nice calm here, so that i can pin you and Ollie down. He-he!

That's right! The last thing this thread needs is for me to jump in.

Disclaimer: I am actually younger and much more handsome than this characture.

 

[Ollie Garchy]

This post is in response to Perseus' excellent post:

PART ONE:

(1) Lebensraum & Other forms of Expansion

There is no point debating Hitler's quest for Lebensraum in eastern Europe. The evidence is overwhelming. The Nazis made territorial expansion to the east a primary goal of their political movement. Mein Kampf, and Nazi literature in general, was clear on this issue. Historians do not have to point to secret German policy formulations.

But Mein Kampf also explained why Hitler thought Lebensraum was necessary, and to a small degree how the policy came into being. During the 1920s, as Germany was literally ripped apart by French occupation, many Germans other than Hitler thought about German national security. Reichswehr thinkers like Hans Von Seeckt believed that Germany could not trust any other state for assistance and argued for the creation of a vast military able to act independently against all other European powers combined. Seeckt was essentially right. Versailles did create a long list of hostile German neighbours, jealous to guard their newly won territories. That was the French intention. Gustav Stresemann chose another approach. He took the policy route later chosen by Konrad Adenauer. Both politicians hoped that a normalization of relations with western Europe would help Germany achieve revisionist policy aims in eastern Europe. Stresemann wanted a free hand against the Poles. Adenauer wanted to undermine the Soviet position in eastern Germany. Hitler took another approach that represented a fusion of Seeckt and Stresemann. Hitler wanted to build an army whose size would force western Europe to think twice about hindering German eastern expansion. But since Hitler regarded a revision of Versailles as an inevitable road to war with Britain, France, the United States or Soviet Union, he wanted to increase German geopolitical weight to match these empires. He chose the Soviet Union as the preferred target and hoped to carve out a large empire.

(1) Hitler: "Germany today is no world power. Even if our momentary military impotence were overcome, we should no longer have any claim to this title. What can a formation, as miserable in its relation of population to area as the German Reich today, mean on this planet? In an era when the earth is gradually being divided up among states, some of which embrace almost entire continents we cannot speak of a world power in connection with a formation whose political mother country is limited to the absurd area of five hundred thousand square kilometers./From the purely territorial point of view, the area of the German Reich vanishes completely as compared with that of the so-called world powers. Let no one cite England as a proof to the contrary, for England in reality is merely the great capital of the British world empire which calls nearly a quarter of the earth's surface its own. In addition, we must regard as giant states, first of all the American Union, then Russia and China. All are spatial formations having in part an area more than ten times greater than the present German Reich. And even France must be counted among these states". Mein Kampf

(2) Hitler: "And so we National Socialists consciously draw a line beneath the foreign policy tendency of our prewar period. We take up where we broke off six hundred years ago. We stop the endless German movement to the south and west, and turn our gaze toward the land in the east. At long last we break off the colonial and commercial policy of the prewar period and shift to the soil policy of the future./If we speak of soil in Europe today, we can primarily have in mind only Russia and her vassal border states". Mein Kampf

The question -- after we realize that Britain, France, USA, USSR and Belgium, Holland, Japan, etc. had empires that operated according to the same principle -- is: what is fundamentally wrong with Hitler's argument? What made it fundamentally different from, say, Japanese expansion in China or US domination of central America? Why did Britain take such offence to German designs in eastern Europe? Why did Britain ultimately accept the need to wage a titanic war of annihilation? Hitler's mindset is easy to figure out. For him, it was do or die. The validity of Hitler's point of view is another issue. But it was part of the Zeitgeist.

(2) AJP Taylor and I

I have not made the claim that Mein Kampf or Nazi ideology should be disregarded. Nor have I argued for the monocausal systemic point of view. While it is obvious that the Versailles and League of Nations systems broke down, these "events" only strengthened Hitler's hand. They did not act as the fundamental cause of war in 1939. Instead, I have shifted the argument in the opposite direction. Hitler wanted what he openly stated -- living space, racial hygiene, the destruction of Democracy in Germany, the destruction of Communism in Europe, heavy rearmament, the expulsion (at least) of the Jews from German lands, etc. The evidence for all of these points is too strong to ignore.

But, I find none of these points revolutionary or original to Germany alone. Here is a short breakdown:

a) Rearmament: I utterly reject the argument that the Allies had a moral right to demilitarize Germany. Morality is by definition "objective". Moral relativism is the admission that our world employs different standards of morality for the enemy..."us" vs. "them". This case is absolutely clear, and the failure of the Geneva Disarmament Talks underlines this perfectly.

b) Antidemocracy: Most of the world was antidemocratic during the 1930s. If Germany was "guilty", if such a word can even be used, so was the majority of the human race. Democratic peace theory is in any case, in my opinion, based on nothing more than self-love. Again morality not applied universally.

c) Anticommunism: Being anticommunist is a virtue.

d) Living Space or Empire: Moral condemnation of Hitler's pursuit of empire by Britain, France, the US or USSR is pure hypocrisy. condemnation on the grounds of realpolitik is another matter. Again morality not applied universally.

e) Racial Hygiene: Condemnation by the British or Americans is, again, ridiculous. While most people have forgotten, eugenics was created in Britain and was highly successful in the United States. Again morality not applied universally.

f) Antisemitism: Again, Germany was hardly the worst antisemitic state during the 1930s. This represents Raul Hilberg's main criticism of Goldhagen's book entitled "Hitler's Willing Executioners. Eastern Europe had a far more developed antisemitic "tradition". Again morality not applied universally.

What is true, on the other hand, is that the Allies generally believed (or wanted to believe) different interpretations of all five elements. While I am oversimplifying matters to a great extent, the Allies feared German rearmament of any kind, baulked at German totalitarianism, rejected any real argument for German territorial expansion, and were appalled by Nazi antisemitism. These reactions counted. Once the hypocrisy is stripped away, however, we see another story altogether. In my opinion none of these elements mattered because they were all manifest in many other states including Italy, Japan and the Soviet Union. The only thing that mattered was the name "German" -- meaning that Allied policymakers were predisposed (owing to complex historical developments and established ways of thinking) to thinking in one way.

Put another way, and I am only trying to illustrate a point, the Allies would have declared war on Stresemann's democratic government had he tried to rewrite the eastern provisions of Versailles. Hell, the Allies would have declared war on Germany if Ghandi or Jesus had commanded German forces and fought for territorial expansion in the east. Once we pull away the shroud of hypocrisy on WWII origins, we can sense that the British and French declared war in 1939 because they FELT they had to. All of their arguments -- from world domination to the uniquely barbaric nature of Nazism -- are worthless. The interesting thing is that Chamberlain and many British policymakers, in the tradition later true of Kennan, understood that realpolitik and sober analysis of international relations does not sell well at home. Churchill did mobilize support? Answering why helps us understand a deep flaw in regards to democracy.