Ollie Garchy
Your response to the last post. Really. is that the best you can do? What happenned to all that reasoned argument?
Your logic twists and turns. you demand facts - when you are presented with them you decide you do not want to go there.
All your premises are wrong.
Hitler was evil ? Certainly.
Starting wars is evil? Not necessarily.
And the relationship between the two statements is irrelevant, they are independent and in no way rely upon each other.
I find it difficult to respond to your claims because I find them all holed below the water-line, and I feel like the war crimes committee in attempting to reply to them. Not because I have nothing to say but because I have far too much to say on each point.
Your information seems so flawed, the sum becomes a handful of chaff blowing in the wind. The answer my friend is blowing in the wind.
If you wish to continue this thread, I will try to be kind. I will present for you facts, hopefully few and perhaps one at a time.
However, my recommendation at this point is that you let it lie, as I have said previously, for the benefit of today's Germany. Also I would not want my opposition to your case to be viewed as whingeing, the usual dismissal when the truth hurts.
Best regards. Del Boy.
I WONDER WHY I WRITE ANYTHING AT ALL...NOBODY EVEN READS THE STUFF:
You guys have presented no
facts at all. What do you mean, facts? You guys do not even understand the issue. So do me a favour, tell me what we are discussing. That might help. I thought we were discussing the supposed German plans for the conquest of Britain.
Simply presenting me with unexplained numbers (like 30 million dead people) explains nothing. What does that mean? Starting WWII to save 30 million not-yet-dead people? Starting WWII to save 6 million not-yet-dead Jews? Come on. That argument is a non-starter because the war itself caused these deaths.
How about the morality issue? Are you telling me that the British and French governments declared war because Hitler was a bad man? Do you really think that politicians go to war for so trivial a reason? Show me one serious government document (not BS propaganda to the public) whereby a major British politician stated that war was necessary because Hitler was bad. I can guarantee you that no such thing exists. So don't even look.
I have been trying to explain that national security conceptions motivated Paris and London to act. And I have presented documentary evidence to prove it. These conceptions were not linked to Hitler or Nazism. They were linked to geopolitical concerns of industrial might, population size, and the major fear that the Germans might start gaining access to regions considered the property of England and France. Britain in particular feared German economic penetration of Rumania. Why? Oil.
The whole basis of Appeasement was that the Allies could give minor concessions to Hitler in the hope that he would accept the overall anti-German character of the Versailles settlement. This shows how big of a factor "badness" really was. But Hitler would have none of it. He defined enhanced national security in terms of the neutralization of Poland and, ultimately, the neutralization of the USSR. That should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the Cold War. The whole premise of American policy during the Cold War was the containment and ultimate severe reduction of Soviet power. But in 1939 we have Allied national security vs. German national security. That is why, in my opinion, the English/French-German war started.
Morality, 30 million not-yet-dead people, Nazi ideology and Poland were non-issues. Do you think that France in particular would have declared war if they knew they would be defeated in 1940? Do you think England would have declared war if they knew that the war would bankrupt the state and lead to the end of their Empire? Hardly. Churchill himself questioned the decision after the war.
London and Paris declared war to keep their artificial European balance of power. They did not care about moral issues. They originally wanted to keep Germany in a state of permanent demilitarized servitude, but then tried to contain all damage to the Versailles system once they realized that it was dying fast. What they ultimately feared was an increase of German power and German political and economic penetration of eastern Europe. This was pure power politics. If you want to make the moral argument, please show me one bit of 1939 evidence -- you cannot use the history of the war itself, or extremely vague moral statements. "The Allies declared war because Hitler was bad and had to be stopped" -- come on.
But it all comes back to Poland.
Again and again and again. If you argue that the Allies wanted to save Poland, then you have to confront the Soviet invasion, Soviet morality, and the Soviet postwar. That is why I bring up Stalin. He acted WITH Hitler and made Hitler's move against Poland possible. Both Hitler and Stalin thought that the Allies would back down once Poland was eliminated.
My premises are not wrong. They are debatable in terms of degree. Yours (whatever they are) are not. Since I like the word today, I will use it again. Your arguments are all "Teletubbie" history.
Here is a good quote by an historian:
"In Britain, Chamberlain and his government believed in 1938 that it was possible to meet Germany's ambitions while preserving British security; but by February-March 1939 they had concluded that Germany's real aim was the domination of Europe, which they could not accept...In all this there is no mystery. But all depended on the fateful premiss that German expansion would not halt unless it was forcibly resisted. It is not surprising that most of the discussion on the origins of the Second World War in Europe continues to concentrate on the motives and forces behind the expansion of Germany. On those questions the last word has not been, and may never be, pronounced". Bell, Origins, pp. 300-301.
[By the way, I am having fun...although I should be working. Sure hope the boss ain't looking].