Did Hitler Want War? - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

Fitz · #1 09-01-2009, 04:08 PM

http://buchanan.org/blog/did-hitler-want-war-2068

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Did Hitler Want War

by Patrick J. Buchanan

On Sept. 1, 1939, 70 years ago, the German Army crossed the Polish frontier. On Sept. 3, Britain declared war.

Six years later, 50 million Christians and Jews had perished. Britain was broken and bankrupt, Germany a smoldering ruin. Europe had served as the site of the most murderous combat known to man, and civilians had suffered worse horrors than the soldiers.

By May 1945, Red Army hordes occupied all the great capitals of Central Europe: Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Berlin. A hundred million Christians were under the heel of the most barbarous tyranny in history: the Bolshevik regime of the greatest terrorist of them all, Joseph Stalin.

What cause could justify such sacrifices?

The German-Polish war had come out of a quarrel over a town the size of Ocean City, Md., in summer. Danzig, 95 percent German, had been severed from Germany at Versailles in violation of Woodrow Wilson’s principle of self-determination. Even British leaders thought Danzig should be returned.

Why did Warsaw not negotiate with Berlin, which was hinting at an offer of compensatory territory in Slovakia? Because the Poles had a war guarantee from Britain that, should Germany attack, Britain and her empire would come to Poland’s rescue.

But why would Britain hand an unsolicited war guarantee to a junta of Polish colonels, giving them the power to drag Britain into a second war with the most powerful nation in Europe?

Was Danzig worth a war? Unlike the 7 million Hong Kongese whom the British surrendered to Beijing, who didn’t want to go, the Danzigers were clamoring to return to Germany.

Comes the response: The war guarantee was not about Danzig, or even about Poland. It was about the moral and strategic imperative “to stop Hitler” after he showed, by tearing up the Munich pact and Czechoslovakia with it, that he was out to conquer the world. And this Nazi beast could not be allowed to do that.

If true, a fair point. Americans, after all, were prepared to use atom bombs to keep the Red Army from the Channel. But where is the evidence that Adolf Hitler, whose victims as of March 1939 were a fraction of Gen. Pinochet’s, or Fidel Castro’s, was out to conquer the world?

After Munich in 1938, Czechoslovakia did indeed crumble and come apart. Yet consider what became of its parts.

The Sudeten Germans were returned to German rule, as they wished. Poland had annexed the tiny disputed region of Teschen, where thousands of Poles lived. Hungary’s ancestral lands in the south of Slovakia had been returned to her. The Slovaks had their full independence guaranteed by Germany. As for the Czechs, they came to Berlin for the same deal as the Slovaks, but Hitler insisted they accept a protectorate.

Now one may despise what was done, but how did this partition of Czechoslovakia manifest a Hitlerian drive for world conquest?

Comes the reply: If Britain had not given the war guarantee and gone to war, after Czechoslovakia would have come Poland’s turn, then Russia’s, then France’s, then Britain’s, then the United States.

We would all be speaking German now.

But if Hitler was out to conquer the world — Britain, Africa, the Middle East, the United States, Canada, South America, India, Asia, Australia — why did he spend three years building that hugely expensive Siegfried Line to protect Germany from France? Why did he start the war with no surface fleet, no troop transports and only 29 oceangoing submarines?
How do you conquer the world with a navy that can’t get out of the Baltic Sea?

If Hitler wanted the world, why did he not build strategic bombers, instead of two-engine Dorniers and Heinkels that could not even reach Britain from Germany?

Why did he let the British army go at Dunkirk?

Why did he offer the British peace, twice, after Poland fell, and again after France fell?

Why, when Paris fell, did Hitler not demand the French fleet, as the Allies demanded and got the Kaiser’s fleet? Why did he not demand bases in French-controlled Syria to attack Suez? Why did he beg Benito Mussolini not to attack Greece?

Because Hitler wanted to end the war in 1940, almost two years before the trains began to roll to the camps.

Hitler had never wanted war with Poland, but an alliance with Poland such as he had with Francisco Franco’s Spain, Mussolini’s Italy, Miklos Horthy’s Hungary and Father Jozef Tiso’s Slovakia.

Indeed, why would he want war when, by 1939, he was surrounded by allied, friendly or neutral neighbors, save France. And he had written off Alsace, because reconquering Alsace meant war with France, and that meant war with Britain, whose empire he admired and whom he had always sought as an ally.

As of March 1939, Hitler did not even have a border with Russia. How then could he invade Russia?

Winston Churchill was right when he called it “The Unnecessary War” — the war that may yet prove the mortal blow to our civilization.

JollyRoger · #2 09-01-2009, 04:17 PM

Somebody needs to buy both you guys a copy of Mein Kampf.

kerry · #3 09-01-2009, 04:17 PM

Leave it to Pat Buchanan to argue that Hitler wasn't such a bad guy after all.

kerry · #4 09-01-2009, 04:18 PM

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Originally Posted by JollyRoger

Somebody needs to buy both you guys a copy of Mein Kampf.

I'm pretty sure Buchanan has one on his bedstand.

LaRondo · #5 09-01-2009, 04:37 PM

Another 'Hitler' thread!? Now what? Seems to me there's a whole bunch of people who just can't get over it.

tankdriver · #6 09-01-2009, 04:40 PM

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Originally Posted by kerry

Leave it to Pat Buchanan to argue that Hitler wasn't such a bad guy after all.

Shockingly, it's not very convincing and full of holes.

Fitz · #7 09-01-2009, 04:56 PM

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Originally Posted by LaRondo

Another 'Hitler' thread!? Now what? Seems to me there's a whole bunch of people who just can't get over it.

Today's the 70th anniversary. A better title would have been: "Did Hitler Want War in 1939?" I think the Nazis were convinced of an eventual clash with the Soviet Union, but did not want a war with England or the USA.

pj67coll · #8 09-01-2009, 05:15 PM

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Originally Posted by Fitz

Today's the 70th anniversary. A better title would have been: "Did Hitler Want War in 1939?" I think the Nazis were convinced of an eventual clash with the Soviet Union, but did not want a war with England or the USA.

"The Nazi's" had nothing to do with it. It was exclusively driven by Hitler's thoughts and he absolutely wanted war. Not necessarily what he actually go in 39 which was something of a shock to him, but there is no doubt he expected war with England and eventually probably America down the road. Russia was a given as well.

- Peter.

aklim · #9 09-01-2009, 05:31 PM

I have to agree that Hitler didn't really want a war. He just wanted everyone to yield to all his desires. Because other countries didn't, war came about. Therefore, war is the fault of those who would not yield.

kknudson · #10 09-01-2009, 05:53 PM

While I won't say Hilter wanted or didn't want war, I agree he probably expected it.

If you read Mien Kampf and some various other books on Hilter and WWII you will realize that if he had actually followed his plan there is a good chance of us speaking German. Maybe not the US, but Europe, and probably Britain and Russia would have fallen.
His plan really was really good, BUT they started 5 to 10 years early.

IF the navy and airforce had been complete, there would have been little stopping them.

Consider the Bismarck, basically alone and hardly ready for battle, she gave the Brits fits. The UBoats were just devasting to shipping etc.

Panther tanks were not much different, all but indestructable to most opposing armour at the time.

He got fat headed, overextended and that lead to his downfall.

Fitz · #11 09-01-2009, 06:13 PM

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Originally Posted by pj67coll

"The Nazi's" had nothing to do with it. It was exclusively driven by Hitler's thoughts and he absolutely wanted war. Not necessarily what he actually go in 39 which was something of a shock to him, but there is no doubt he expected war with England and eventually probably America down the road. Russia was a given as well.

- Peter.

I don't really get the distinction between Hitler and "The Nazis", and it certainly wasn't my intent to deny his ultimate responsibility as leader of the Third Reich.

But, I also can't accept that Hitler was the only obstacle to peace in 1939. Perhaps you can explain to me why England and France, when declaring war on Germany, did not simultaneously declare war on the Soviet Union when it took the other half of Poland in 1939?

And what role did Lend Lease play in seeing that "eventually probably" (Germany would be at war with America), became more like a certainty?

Squabble · #12 09-01-2009, 06:21 PM

this is all well and good but who the heck goes to Pat Buchanan for their WWII history??? the guy is a grade A d-bag and certainly no historian. this debate would be better if it was spawned by an actual historian, not some has been TV monkey talking head. just because someone is a politician and a TV personality, doesn't make them experts on everything. his presence in this thread is pointless and laughable. rant over.

pj67coll · #13 09-01-2009, 06:26 PM

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Originally Posted by Fitz

I don't really get the distinction between Hitler and "The Nazis",

The distinction is that in the context of German foreign policy, "The Nazi's" ie everyone in the party other than Hitler himself were irrellivent. The only person who counted was Hitler. He did not rule by committee. He did what he thought best according to his own grand plan with no concern for the inputs of others.

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But, I also can't accept that Hitler was the only obstacle to peace in 1939. Perhaps you can explain to me why England and France, when declaring war on Germany, did not simultaneously declare war on the Soviet Union when it took the other half of Poland in 1939?

To be blunt. They weren't that stupid. They knew perfectly well that they would not be able to beat Germany on their own. They needed Russia to do their fighting for them. This was clearly not going ot happen if they went to war with the Russians at the same time as with the Germans. Remember, the French even had a defence pact with the Russians prior to the German attack on Poland. Dont forget also that both their governments were shot thru with commie deputies and sympathisers prior to the war.

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And what role did Lend Lease play in seeing that "eventually probably" (Germany would be at war with America), became more like a certainty?

It played a role all right but so what? Hitlers world view put him on a collision course with western democracy irrespective of exactly what happened in detail.

- Peter.

Fitz · #14 09-01-2009, 06:42 PM

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Originally Posted by pj67coll

To be blunt. They weren't that stupid. They knew perfectly well that they would not be able to beat Germany on their own. They needed Russia to do their fighting for them. This was clearly not going ot happen if they went to war with the Russians at the same time as with the Germans. Remember, the French even had a defence pact with the Russians prior to the German attack on Poland. Dont forget also that both their governments were shot thru with commie deputies and sympathisers prior to the war.

So Hitler's paranoia wasn't totally out of place. The sides had already been chosen.