Pat Buchanan Defends Hitler

[Nbadan]

Holy accommodator!

Did Hitler Want War?
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?


US Daily (http://www.theusdaily.com/articles/viewopiarticle.jsp?id=2552&type=Opinion)

Next week, Buchanan defends Satan himself....the lost brother

[boutons_deux]

Next up, PB denies the Holocaust.

[DMX7]

We would all be speaking German now.


We would all be dead.

[101A]

Buchanan often makes sense.

In this?

Not so much.

[rjv]

buchanan is still relevant?

[DarrinS]

buchanan is still relevant?


That's what I was thinking.

[Cry Havoc]

buchanan is still relevant?

QFT

This might be one of the most asinine things I've ever read.

[jack sommerset]

These anti-war freaks are all the same.

[DMX7]

These anti-war freaks are all the same.

Yeah, they're sane.

[Winehole23]

Buchanan often makes sense.

In this?

Not so much.just curious. Can you point to something specific that Buchanan is wrong about?

What I think people really object to here is looking at Hitler as a man in his historical context, rather than as the abstract exemplar of evil par excellence he has become to us.

There is much one might disagree with as to Buchanan's conclusion -- one he borrows from Churchill -- that WWII might not have been necessary and led directly to the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, but I see very little to object to factually in the history he cites. The strategic picture he paints is well founded in my opinion. The conclusions he draws are something else altogether, but his brief does make sense.

World War Two was not a mythic struggle between good and evil, but a historical fight pitting nations and people against each other, with good and bad men on both sides, and ample atrocities on both sides. I'm as glad as anyone that the good guys won, but we aren't as good -- nor were the Germans as evil and insane -- as advertised. Our adversaries (and even Hitler) were flesh and blood, like us. They were not crazy, and they were not demon indwelt.

At least, not very much more than ourselves.

War hype lives on in people's minds, only we call it history. Pat Buchanan puts the propaganda aside to look at the historical situation. You may not like the conclusions he draws -- they make me pretty uneasy -- but as far as I can tell the facts he cites are more or less correct.

[Winehole23]

Also, I'd be grateful if someone could say with what particular words Buchanan "defends" Hitler in the article.

IMHO the banner is argumentative. I find no support for it in the OP.

[Nbadan]

Seriously?

L5csB6QGw4U

[Winehole23]

Use your own words, Dan. Defend the banner. It's not self evident, as you seem to think.

[Nbadan]

You seriously want to debate whether Hilter would have been happy just invading The Czec Rep. and Poland if Britian just left him alone like Pat claims?

[Winehole23]

Winston Churchill was in no way a defender of Hitler, but he reached a conclusion very much like Buchanan's. Though it is more nearly true to put it the other way around.

[Winehole23]

You seriously want to debate whether Hilter would have been happy just invading The Czec Rep. and Poland if Britian just left him alone like Pat claims?No. I want you to point to particular words that defend Hitler.

[Winehole23]

Nor do I think Buchanan suggests that Britain ought to have left Germany alone. On the contrary, he suggests there might have been alternatives (to the immediate occasion of the war). Not so outrageous, IMO.

[Nbadan]

Why, when Paris fell, did Hitler not demand the French fleet, as the Allies demanded and got the Kaiser's fleet?

So, Hitler was just being humane.....right?

[Winehole23]

Strawman. The inference is your own. In no way is it a necessary conclusion from Buchanan's words.

[Winehole23]

It only makes sense that in order to install the Vichy regime, it might not have been expedient for Hitler to pursue the military humiliation of France to the utmost, as happened to Germany after WWI. No ascription of mercy or humanity is necessary in this case. Strategic calculation accommodates it easily.

[spurspf]

Winehole23, one question. How many Jews were killed by Hitler's master plan?

[z0sa]

Hitler was murdering little Germans with 'unworthy' disabilities long before he started systematically killing off the jews and other holocaust victims.

In other words, he was fucking insane. why defend that piece of shit? the only people with hotter lakes of fire than him are stalin and satan himself.

[Winehole23]

Six million or so. But that doesn't make Buchanan's argument that Hitler was seeking an end to the war in 1940 -- well before the final solution was implemented in earnest -- wrong.

The intense -- I won't say unparalleled -- evil of the holocaust or the Nazi regime isn't at issue here, and I must say, it wasn't much of an issue for us until the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

[Winehole23]

Hitler was murdering little Germans with 'unworthy' disabilities long before he started systematically killing off the jews and other holocaust victims.No doubt about it. Buchanan doesn't defend it. nor do I.

[Winehole23]

When it comes right down to it, we didn't care very much about the moral depravity of Hitler until we were attacked. Only then did the war become "morally" imperative.

[z0sa]

No doubt about it. Buchanan doesn't defend it. nor do I.

Open a damn history book. I honestly don't know what to say, other than you don't know what the hell that crazy sumbitch was going to do other than kill everything in his way or outside of his greater plan for purity.

[Winehole23]

Don't get me wrong, I think we did the right thing. But Buchanan's take isn't threadbare, as some people are making out.

[z0sa]

When it comes right down to it, we didn't care very much about the moral depravity of Hitler until we were attacked. Only then did the war become "morally" imperative.

No one knew about the Nazi death camps until we were breaking them open and finding nazi soldiers burning thousands of dead bodies they had recently gassed or shot in a desperate attempt to hide their superiors' war crimes.

And they weren't exactly 'war crimes', were they?

[Winehole23]

And I don't see anyone attacking Winston Churchill for believing much the same. He ended up thinking the declaration of war was a mistake.

[Winehole23]

No one knew about the Nazi death camps until we were breaking them open and finding nazi soldiers burning thousands of dead bodies they had recently gassed or shot in a desperate attempt to hide their superiors' war crimes.I'll have to find a citation, but as I understand, this is not exactly true. The US government knew about it long before we did.

And as you pointed out, the extermination of undesirables and deviants started long before, and was no secret.

[z0sa]

I'll have to find a citation, but as I understand, this is not exactly true. The US government knew about it long before we did.

The Government may have been aware about Hitler's "intentions" - but could anyone have imagined the horrible extent to which he took it?

[z0sa]

I'll have to find a citation, but as I understand, this is not exactly true. The US government knew about it long before we did.

And as you pointed out, the extermination of undesirables and deviants started long before, and was no secret.

It was quite secret. In fact, Hitler only made one secretly transmitted document about the entire issue of murdering off disabled young Germans, despite the fact a few hundred thousand were killed over his tenure as Fuhrer.

[Winehole23]

Our record of extending asylum to German Jews in WWII during our technical neutrality, while we knew they were being persecuted, is not exactly a paragon of humane decency. The moral imperative was not yet in force.

[Winehole23]

It was quite secret. In fact, Hitler only made one secretly transmitted document about the entire issue of murdering off disabled young Germans, despite the fact a few hundred thousand were killed over his tenure as Fuhrer.Thanks for the correction. I misunderstood your comment above.

[z0sa]

Our record of extending asylum to German Jews in WWII during our technical neutrality, while we knew they were being persecuted, is not exactly a paragon of humane decency. The moral imperative was not yet in force.

I guess you forget the 30's were the height of the great depression - and during a time when neutrality was favored by most Americans. And I'd like to see the piles of definitive proof about the concentration camps that the USGov withheld.

[z0sa]

Another thing is that you are not taking Hitler's ruthlessness into account. This is the same guy who burnt down the Reichstag and murdered most of his political opponents in a single night.

[Winehole23]

The Government may have been aware about Hitler's "intentions" - but could anyone have imagined the horrible extent to which he took it?Probably not.

What happened in Russia during Stalin, in terms of the scale of death (20 million or so), was far worse. But war with them was never a moral imperative for us on account of it.

[Winehole23]

Another thing is that you are not taking Hitler's ruthlessness into account. This is the same guy who burnt down the Reichstag and then murdered most of his political opponents in a single night.I most certainly do. I don't carry Pat Buchanan's brief. But he doesn't defend Hitler. That's all I'm saying.

[Winehole23]

I guess you forget the 30's were the height of the great depression - and during a time when neutrality was favored by most Americans.I did not forget it. What makes you think so?

[z0sa]

I most certainly do. I don't carry Pat Buchanan's brief. But he doesn't defend Hitler. That's all I'm saying.

but all these combined together make me certain that simply regaining the Polish corridor or whatever nonsense Buchanan is spewing, is straight out wrong. We don't need to see definitive plans from before/the start of the war to be sure that the second worst murderer of all-time (behind stalin) would have carried said plans out. He was insane - and you said he wasn't "that crazy", at least compared to us. I mean, he was friggin off his rocker and rearming the nation with the most advanced military of the time.

[Winehole23]

And they weren't exactly 'war crimes', were they?Of course they were. No less than firebombing the cities of Germany and Eastern Europe, and no less than the bombs we dropped on Japan.

[z0sa]

Of course they were. No less than firebombing the cities of Germany and Eastern Europe, and no less than the bombs we dropped on Japan.

Hiroshima/Nagasaki is comparing apples to oranges. Direct invasion of Japan would have cost over a million lives according to many accounts, most of them civilian Japanese anyway. We had already lost many tens of thousands of Americans. The Japanese were acting just as nuts as the Germans with their kamikazes and death camps and their "scorched earth" policy of leaving their soldiers to fight without supplies or food to the bitter end on whatever island. Dropping the bombs makes perfect sense. Much more death would have resulted had we not.

The firebombings is a different story, but don't discount the Germans spending most of the war bombing the shit out of England. On the eastern front, Germans murdered just as many if not more civilians that were not Jewish and they did were.

[Winehole23]

but all these combined together make me certain that simply regaining the Polish corridor or whatever nonsense Buchanan is spewing, is straight out wrong. What's wrong about it? He basically lifts his take from Churchill. He says the way the war started was a mistake.


We don't need to see definitive plans from before/the start of the war to be sure that the second worst murderer of all-time (behind stalin) would have carried said plans out. Hindsight is 20/20, and i don't think anyone is clairvoyant, or anything inevitable, in history.


He was insane - and you said he wasn't "that crazy", at least compared to us. I mean, he was friggin off his rocker and rearming the nation with the most advanced military of the time.Actually, I said that Hitler and the Germans weren't as crazy as the hype. Crazy? Yes. Evil? No doubt. We were right to take them on, but that doesn't make us so good, or them, so unusual in essence. IMHO.

If it were really morally imperative to take on evil madmen who slaughter their own people, we would always be at war. Transatlantic relationships really had more to do with our participation in WWII than morality.

[Winehole23]

Hiroshima/Nagasaki is comparing apples to oranges. Direct invasion of Japan would have cost over a million lives according to many accounts, most of them civilian Japanese anyway. We had already lost many tens of thousands of Americans. The Japanese were acting just as nuts as the Germans with their kamikazes and death camps and their "scorched earth" policy of leaving their soldiers to fight without supplies or food to the bitter end on whatever island. Dropping the bombs makes perfect sense. Much more death would have resulted had we not.This is an argument from expedience, not morality.


The firebombings is a different story, but don't discount the Germans spending most of the war bombing the shit out of England. I don't discount it. But it doesn't make what we did right.

[z0sa]

Actually, I said that Hitler and the Germans weren't as crazy as the hype. Crazy? Yes. Evil? No doubt. We were right to take them on, but that doesn't make us so good, or them, so unusual in essence. IMHO.

I won't say we were the shining knights, because its war. No one was a shining light in WW2 - but would you classify the pilots of the AAF or RAF with say, the SS units in charge of the death camps?

The point I'm making is that you give a madman like Hitler power, and you see what comes of it. Denying he would have used said power in any different way than the way he did, is outright bullshitting yourself. My opinion, I guess you could say, though I consider it much more along the lines of fact.

[Winehole23]

The point I'm making is that you give a madman like Hitler power, and you see what comes of it. Denying he would have used said power in any different way than the way he did, is outright bullshitting yourself. My opinion, I guess you could say, though I consider it much more along the lines of fact.I don't think this is knowable in advance. Like I said, I don't believe in historical inevitability. For you it is a fact, for me, an opinion. Hitler was very nearly killed on one or two occasions. There was nothing inevitable about it. In my opinion, right. I respect your opinion, but I just don't think anything is dead certain in history, except that we all live and die.

[z0sa]

This is an argument from expedience, not morality.

I don't discount it. But it doesn't make what we did right.

So you're denying the fact we would have had to commit far more atrocities without the bombs than we did with them?

[Winehole23]

What getting people's goat is that Buchanan glosses Hitler as a politician, not a madman. To be fair, he was both. But he was a politician too.

[z0sa]

I don't think this is knowable in advance. Like I said, I don't believe in historical inevitability. For you it is a fact, for me, an opinion. Hitler was very nearly killed on one or two occasions. There was nothing inevitable about it. In my opinion, right. I respect your opinion, but I just don't think anything is dead certain in history, except that we all live and die.

I agree that history is not 'inevitable', but this is one case where the evidence overwhelmingly supports the argument.

[Nbadan]

Britain tried appeasement, that didn't work out too well...

[Winehole23]

So you're denying the fact we would have had to commit far more atrocities without than the bombs than we did with them?Strawman. Japan was seeking terms of surrender through Swiss channels at the time we dropped the bombs. Only Truman's muleheaded insistence on unconditional surrender prevented it from happening. I don't buy that the invasion of the Japanese mainland was a foregone conclusion, and the official mortality estimates for US forces are not in line with the "millions" commonly cited.

[Nbadan]

I agree that history is not 'inevitable', but this is one case where the evidence overwhelmingly supports the argument.

Yeah, Hitler had broken a lot of promises by the time he invaded Poland..

[z0sa]

Britain tried appeasement, that didn't work out too well...

pretty much the unspoken argument here. Hitler pushed the envelope as far as he could.

[Winehole23]

I agree that history is not 'inevitable', but this is one case where the evidence overwhelmingly supports the argument.it's more nearly true to say that history itself supports the argument, but we are veering close to tautology here.

[Winehole23]

pretty much the unspoken argument here. Hitler pushed the envelope as far as he could.Nobody denies it. Not Pat Buchanan, not me. Will you guys cut it out with the strawmen?

[z0sa]

Strawman. Japan was seeking terms of surrender through Swiss channels at the time we dropped the bombs. Only Truman's muleheaded insistence on unconditional surrender prevented it from happening. I don't buy that the invasion of the Japanese mainland was a foregone conclusion, and the official mortality estimates for US forces are not in line with the "millions" commonly cited.

I didn't say millions of our guys would be dead. I'd reckon some 200,000 Americans may have died (still a grotesque, horrible number, especially considering both of my grandfathers served). There'd be exponential amounts of Japanese civis dead, though, and at the hands of many of our soldiers.

[Winehole23]

Britain tried appeasement, that didn't work out too well...We'll see how well it works out when we have to cut a deal with the Taliban.

Wars are avoided and concluded by diplomacy. It's not a dirty word, and it isn't equivalent to appeasement. You should know better, Dan. there's always a deal. It's only a dirty word when it doesn't work out. But that's no reason not to try, even with a Hitler.

[Nbadan]

...but Hitler wanted war, he spelled it out in Mein Kampf that he wanted a war of conquest in the East, a war for Lebensraum that would destroy Bolshevism and enslave what remained of the Slavic race to serve good ethnic Aryans.

[Winehole23]

...but Hitler wanted war, he spelled it out in Mein Kampf that he wanted a war of conquest in the East, a war for Lebensraum that would destroy Bolshevism and enslave what remained of the Slavic race to serve good ethnic Aryans.So I've heard. Hitler's autobiography didn't make anything inevitable. He needed a lot of help. That was never a given.

[Winehole23]

Versailles, and the insane demonization of Germany during and after WWI, didn't help much.

[Nbadan]

Oh, he wanted a war with Russia. No doubt. Russia was his natural ideological enemy, occupier of the lands he coveted in the East and also a rapidly industrializing economy that was threatening to overtake Germany...

[Winehole23]

Sure. But worldwide domination was never feasible, and even in Europe, he was content to leave other countries in the hands of trusted toadies, rather than ruling them directly.

All Buchanan was saying, and I agree with it, is that the world domination meme is overblown. Hitler was mostly interested in places with ethnic Germans, or in territorial adjacencies thereto. Lebensraum and all that. Subduing the territorial US was never in the cards. All that is a lot of hooey.

[Nbadan]

Every-time anyone drew a line in the sand, Hitler crossed it..Poland was the last draw. Hitler was building up his forces and secret SS army, he had intelligence operatives in every country, and while he might have admired Britain, he also feared a two-front war preferring to deal with Russia first....

[Winehole23]

Your first attempt to show Buchanan defended Hitler failed.

Do you have any others Dan, or just more distractions?

[Nbadan]

Well, call it what you want but it seems to me that your defending Buchanan who is defending Hitler...

[Winehole23]

Except you never showed that Buchanan defended Hitler. You just assert that by fiat.

[Winehole23]

All he does is criticize England for the way they went to war, in a manner that follows Winston Churchill's own post war ruminations. This whole so-called controversy is bogus.

[Nbadan]

No, he defends him...Hitler proved to be a murderous zealot and Buchanan wants us to believe that Hitler was just driven by unfortunate circumstances...it's ridiculous...

...also, I'm betting that Churchill would not have considered the war such a waste if Britain would have lost....

[Winehole23]

Buchanan wants us to believe that Hitler was just driven by unfortunate circumstancesFind support in the text for this conclusion, then maybe I'll start to take you seriously. I found nothing.

This is more fiat and circularity, Dan. Defend your dishonest and misleading banner. Please try to be textually specific. What particular words in the article support or defend Hitler?

[Winehole23]

Well, call it what you want but it seems to me that your defending Buchanan who is defending Hitler...I would say you resort to fallacies and lame ad hominems because you're all out of arguments, but it's truer to say that you have put forth no argument at all yet. You just keep saying Buchanan defends Hitler, without any evidence whatever.

[Nbadan]

I would say you resort to fallacies and lame ad hominems because you're all out of arguments, but it's truer to say that you have put forth no argument at all yet. You just keep saying Buchanan defends Hitler, without any evidence whatever.

Buchanan's letter bears witness to itself...but me thinks your gonna have a hard time convincing people that Buchanan isn't inferring that Hitler 'wouldn't have been such as bad guy' if he was not dragged into WW2...

[Winehole23]

Buchanan's letter bears witness to itself...but me thinks your gonna have a hard time convincing people that Buchanan isn't inferring that Hitler 'wouldn't have been such as bad guy' if he was not dragged into WW2...Show me where he does, if it's so plain. There must be something Buchanan says that supports this, if it's so self evident. Give us the quote. So far we only have threadbare assertions from you.

[Winehole23]

If it bears witness to itself, give us the relevant testimony.

[z0sa]

the fact he touches the idea with anything less than a ten foot pole indicates a lot.

[Winehole23]

In essence, it's only another brainless, off the rack reductio ad Hitlerum, a crass smear. Nothing more.

[Winehole23]

the fact he touches the idea with anything less than a ten foot pole indicates a lot.What does it indicate? His view would have been in the mainstream of the GOP in the 1940's. It's not too different from the tone of Bob Taft before 1941.

[Winehole23]

In my mind it only indicates that Pat Robertson still subscribes to the erstwhile anti-imperial emphasis in the GOP, not that he supports Hitler, or anything like that.

[Nbadan]

the fact he touches the idea with anything less than a ten foot pole indicates a lot.

No doubt.....Stalin, Lenin, Pot Pol, Hitler....these were murderous SOBs...

[Winehole23]

More strawman again. Where's your argument? Nobody denied Hitler was a murderer.

[z0sa]

What does it indicate? His view would have been in the mainstream of the GOP in the 1940's. It's not too different from the tone of Bob Taft before 1941.

It's not the 1940's. We know Hitler was mentally insane. We know he had every intention of attacking the Soviets, minimum.

If we're 99% sure he would have gone on with his powertrip, why speculate otherwise?

[Winehole23]

If we're 99% sure he would have gone on with his powertrip, why speculate otherwise?I'm surprised you suggest even 1% uncertainty. Are you suggesting it wasn't completely certain?

Why are you defending Hitler?

[Nbadan]

It's not the 1940's. We know Hitler was mentally insane. We know he had every intention of attacking the Soviets, minimum.

If we're 99% sure he would have gone on with his powertrip, why speculate otherwise?

No doubt, what if he had defeated The Soviets? ...all those natural resources available, no way we could have stopped him from marching right through Europe...

[z0sa]

I'm surprised you suggest even 1% uncertainty. Are you suggesting it wasn't completely certain?

Why are you defending Hitler?

Who's using deflection now?

Second, if you agree why are we having this discussion? Without the premise of that 1%, what argument does Buchanan have exactly?

[Nbadan]

I'm surprised you suggest even 1% uncertainty. Are you suggesting it wasn't completely certain?

Why are you defending Hitler?

Are you OK?

[Winehole23]

We're lucky he attacked the USSR. If he hadn't, he'd have been much tougher to beat in Europe.

[Winehole23]

Who's using deflection now?

Second, if you agree why are we having this discussion? Without the premise of that 1%, what argument does Buchanan have exactly?I'm not familiar with his latest book, except in a very sketchy way, and I'm not defending his thesis. All I said was his argument in the OP was plausible, (though not persuasive to me) and that it amounts in no way to Hitler boosterism. As I see it, neither you nor Dan have refuted this.

[z0sa]

We're lucky he attacked the USSR. If he hadn't, he'd have been much tougher to beat in Europe.

If Hitler had simply planned on supplying his troops past Summertime the Soviet Union was his.

[Winehole23]

That Buchanan defends Hitler is intellectually dishonest and a smear. Pure and simple.

[z0sa]

I'm not familiar with his latest book, except in a very sketchy way, and I'm not defending his thesis. All I said was his argument in the OP was plausible, (though not persuasive to me) and that it amounts in no way to Hitler boosterism. As I see it, neither you nor Dan have refuted this.

Boosterism? And you don't have to outright defend Hitler to be on the wrong side of the issue.

[Winehole23]

See the banner.

I've indicated, repeatedly, that I don't stand with Buchanan. But saying he defends Hitler is irresponsible and feebleminded.

[Nbadan]

Wow.....and to think Pat Buchanan lies all the time....

[Winehole23]

Pat Buchanan being wrong, or a liar, doesn't make your opinion right, Dan. You just parroted lefty blogs instead of reading and thinking for yourself.

[Nbadan]

Now defend is support? :lol

[Nbadan]

Pat Buchanan being wrong, or a liar, doesn't make your opinion right, Dan. You just parroted lefty blogs instead of reading and thinking for yourself.

I guess that's a matter of perception...I'm betting I Know what side of the forum will support your argument...

[Winehole23]

Mincing. Strike the word *support*, if that's so different in your mind. It isn't in mine.

[Winehole23]

I guess that's a matter of perception...I'm betting I Know what side of the forum will support your argument...Another hasty generalization. Do you believe in guilt by association, Dan? That would surprise me.

[Nbadan]

Mincing. Strike the word *support*, if that's so different in your mind. It isn't in mine.

No, there's a big difference...for instance, I will defend Buchanan's right to stick his foot, or rather his writing hand, in his mouth any day of the week, but I won't support what he writes if I don't philosophically agree with it..

[Winehole23]

Nor does anyone require you to. But smearing him baselessly because you disagree doesn't help your case. And that's really all you've done.

[Nbadan]

While I may disagree with him, and I do, I also believe he defends Hitler...

[Winehole23]

But you can't adduce even a particle of textual support for this view. So much the worse for your belief.

You have come very close to the Wild Cobra-esque --



*it is true because I believe it, and you are wrong because you disagree*

[z0sa]

But you can't adduce even a particle of textual support for this view. So much the worse for your belief.

You have come very close to the Wild Cobra-esque --




Hitler would have kept taking and taking as long as they were willing to appease him. Additionally, he was warned about the Polish corridor - that taking it by force would mean war.

[Nbadan]

Hitler was able to embark on his long-cherished ambition of destroying the Versailles peace settlement that ended WW1. Reparations payments had been suspended, but there was plenty more for Hitler to overturn. First he rearmed. Then, in 1936, he put troops into the demilitarized Rhineland. Two years later he annexed Austria. All these steps violated the Versailles treaty, but neither Britain nor France did anything to stop Hitler. When he demanded the German-speaking areas of Czechoslovakia, they caved in once again, despite the fact that these territories had never previously belonged to Germany. However, when Hitler went a step further, occupying and partitioning the remainder of Czechoslovakia in early 1939, western resolve finally stiffened. Guarantees were given to other east European countries, including Poland. When Hitler nevertheless attacked Poland, war was inevitable.

[Winehole23]

To z0sa: You should read Buchanan's article this week arguing how Winston Churchill took Great Britain from disaster to disaster, and helped transform it from an world power of the first rank to a dependency of the USA. IMO his Anglophilia partly explains his aversion to Britain's declaration of war, as it led directly to Britain's demise as a world power and Soviet hegemony in half of Europe.

[Winehole23]

Hitler would have kept taking and taking as long as they were willing to appease him. Additionally, he was warned about the Polish corridor - that taking it by force would mean war.Nobody disputes this. But why was England bound to fight in Poland? Buchanan argues, and history shows, that this decision led to 50 years of bondage to the USSR for Poland. And it led to England's demise as a world power. Bad for his country, bad for the Poland. Failure, in both the national interest and the strategic objective.

Arguendo, right?

Looking at WWII as being all about Hitler is unnecessarily restrictive, and it is also not accurate from the standpoint of historical analysis. Many peoples and many states were involved, before, during and after. Hitler was a sine qua non, but he is not the whole story. What you guys are really objecting to here is the amplitude of the historian. You seem to prefer the reductionism of the moralist. But history is not moral, and it is not simple.

[Nbadan]

Nobody disputes this. But why was England bound to fight in Poland? Buchanan argues, and history shows, that this decision led to 50 years of bondage to the USSR for Poland. And it led to England's demise as a world power. Bad for his country, bad for the Poland. Failure, in both the national interest and the strategic objective.

It's not like Stalin was waiting around for England to weaken fighting Germany...Russia was taking parts of Poland too while Germany attacked..And Russia simultaneously annexed the three Baltic states...

[Winehole23]

Without the fog of war, would the Soviets have had the opportunity?

[Winehole23]

It's not the 1940's.In a way, this was my point. that Buchanan is a very old fashioned sort of "conservative". Of course, to be anything but au courant, and for sure to harken back to "outmoded" views and attitudes, is considered a mortal sin against the inexorable march of progress and civilization. God forbid anyone should ever retain any out of date ideas, or anything that contradicts our own "modernity".

[doobs]

Defeating Nazism and German militarism was pretty cool. So was establishing NATO, rehabilitating Germany, promoting European economic integration, and containing and ultimately defeating the Soviet Union. In the final analysis, things turned out OK.

Who knows what would have happened if the Brits, the French, and the Americans had let Nazism fester and expand into all of Europe and most of North Africa? My hunch is that we would have ended up having two large authoritarian dictatorships to contend with for the rest of the 20th century, instead of just one.

[Winehole23]

Yes, Buchanan's thesis that WWII didn't have to happen the way it did seems very unlikely. And is rightly controversial. But the solution isn't to call PJB a Hitler lover, It's to take his argument apart.

Nobody has done that so far, and all you have done is work backward from the present to claim WWII as an inevitability. This is almost tautological. That because things worked out *well*, the authority of the way things happened in the past is unquestionable.

With all respect doobs, I disagree.

For my own part I do not follow PJB where he goes, but I defend his right to go there. I don't think his detractors in this thread have troubled themselves to understand his claims in the first place, but in fairness Buchanan merely insinuates them himself in the OP. And I will admit my own familiarity with the topic comes from no more than a couple of book reviews I read last year and barely remember.

Surely, we can do better than link Buchanan relentlessly to Hitler, or spew mindlessly about what a madman Hitler was, and about what a Hitler Buchanan must be, for suggesting things might have happened otherwise.

The John Lukacs (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_7060/is_11_7/ai_n28529274/?tag=content;col1) rejoinder to PJB is pretty pungent. He compares Buchanan to David Irving. IMO, that's a pretty good place to start.

An amconmag in-house rejoinder to Lukac's review can be found here (http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/the_american_conservative_john_lukacs_and_the_unne cessary_review/).

Peter Hitchen's "review (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-560700/Was-World-War-Two-just-pointless-self-defeating-Iraq-asks-Peter-Hitchens.html)", via takimag.

[Winehole23]

From the Hitchens review:


The milder version is: "Who really won the war, since Britain is now subject to a German-run European Union?"


The other is one I hear from an ever-growing number of war veterans contemplating modern Britain's landscape of loutishness and disorder and recalling the sacrifices they made for it: "Why did we bother?"

[Winehole23]

Americans may take or leave Mr Buchanan's views about whether they should have stayed out, but the USA did very well out of a war in which Britain and Russia did most of the fighting, while Washington pocketed (and still keeps) most of the benefits.

[Winehole23]

We went to war with the Kaiser in 1914 mainly because we feared being overtaken by Germany as the world's greatest naval power. Yet one of the main results of the war was that we were so weakened we were overtaken instead by the USA.


We were also forced, by American pressure, to end our naval alliance with Japan, which had protected our Far Eastern Empire throughout the 1914-18 war.


This decision, more than any other, cost us that Empire. By turning Japan from an ally into an enemy, but without the military or naval strength to guard our possessions, we ensured that we would be easy meat in 1941.


After the fall of Singapore in 1942, our strength and reputation in Asia were finished for good and our hurried scuttle from India unavoidable.

[Winehole23]

Hitchens giving Buchanan's argument in precis (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/precis):


But this is a minor issue beside his surgical examination of Britain's guarantee to help Poland in March 1939. Hitler saw our "stand" as an empty bluff, and called it.


The Poles were crushed and murdered, and their country erased from the map. Hitler's eventual defeat left Poland under the Soviet heel for two generations.


We then embarked on a war which cost us our Empire, many of our best export markets, what was left of our naval supremacy, and most of our national wealth - gleefully stripped from us by Roosevelt in return for Lend-Lease supplies.


As a direct result we sought membership of a Common Market that has since bled away our national independence.


Would we not have been wiser to behave as the USA did, staying out of it and waiting for Hitler and Stalin to rip out each other's bowels?

[Winehole23]

By Christmas 1940, Stalin had in fact murdered many more people than Hitler and had invaded nearly as many countries.


We almost declared war on him in 1940 and he ordered British communists to subvert our war effort against the Nazis during the Battle of Britain.


And, in alliance with Hitler, he was supplying the Luftwaffe with much of the fuel and resources it needed to bomb London.


Not so simple, is it? Survey the 20th Century and you see Britain repeatedly fighting Germany, at colossal expense.


No one can doubt the valour and sacrifice involved.


But at the end of it all, Germany dominates Europe behind the smokescreen of the EU; our Empire and our rule of the seas have gone, we struggle with all the problems of a great civilisation in decline, and our special friend, the USA, has smilingly supplanted us for ever. But we won the war.

[Winehole23]

Mainly, I think people are pissed off that Buchanan refuses to kneel at the shrine of WWII tribal pieties and self-love, or make Hitler his pinyata. He focuses instead on men of state and power relations. Unforgiveable.

It's become obligatory to worship war and US militarism and especially WWII. The fetish graces the mantlepiece, and visitors are quick to bow to it.



Bow to my ancestors, dammit!

[doobs]

I don't doubt that Buchanan is making a sincere argument about whether WWII was a necessary war. And I think there is an unwarranted tendency towards reflexive hatred for everything Hitler.

But he's engaging in intellectual masturbation here. Even if he's arguing about "men of state and power relations," his argument is a difficult one to make. It's an interesting take, but it's easy to disagree with him without resorting to moralistic or emotional arguments.

[ChumpDumper]

Hitler invaded Russia.

That pretty much blows Buchanan's argument out of the water.

[Winehole23]

Hitler invaded Russia.

That pretty much blows Buchanan's argument out of the water.What argument? Sounds like you know more about it than me.

[Winehole23]

But he's engaging in intellectual masturbation here. Even if he's arguing about "men of state and power relations," his argument is a difficult one to make. It's an interesting take, but it's easy to disagree with him without resorting to moralistic or emotional arguments.Sure. Anybody can disagree. I do myself. But calling him an apologist for Hitler is not well founded in any way. It's just a dumb marker for people's hostility to his views.

[ChumpDumper]

What argument? Sounds like you know more about it than me.His argument in the OP that Hitler really didn't want war and just wanted to bring the ethnic Germans under his control.

He had a nonaggression pact with Russia. He broke it. He wanted war. He certainly wanted it over quickly so they could go back to a peacetime economy, but he definitely wanted the natural resources available in parts of the Soviet Union.

[Winehole23]

His argument in the OP that Hitler really didn't want war and just wanted to bring the ethnic Germans under his control.I thought the context of his remarks was Poland specifically and was not meant to be universal. I could be wrong, but it seems to me you're picking at a nit here.

[Winehole23]

In fact, that Hitler had Stalin and the USSR in the crosshairs informs this claim (Hitchens paraphrasing Buchanan, considering things from the standpoint of the interests of GB):


But this is a minor issue beside his surgical examination of Britain's guarantee to help Poland in March 1939. Hitler saw our "stand" as an empty bluff, and called it.


The Poles were crushed and murdered, and their country erased from the map. Hitler's eventual defeat left Poland under the Soviet heel for two generations.


We then embarked on a war which cost us our Empire, many of our best export markets, what was left of our naval supremacy, and most of our national wealth - gleefully stripped from us by Roosevelt in return for Lend-Lease supplies.


As a direct result we sought membership of a Common Market that has since bled away our national independence.


Would we not have been wiser to behave as the USA did, staying out of it and waiting for Hitler and Stalin to rip out each other's bowels?

[ChumpDumper]

Of course Hitchens is going to paint it from the interests of Great Britain's colonial empire, but that really has nothing to do with Buchanan's views on Hitler.

It's fun to think that all Britain had to do was appease Hitler more than they did and they could still rule the world, but Buchanan's argument itself was one of self-determination -- so that opens the door to all kinds of possibilities that someone like Newt Gingrich could novelize.

[z0sa]

In fact, that Hitler had Stalin and the USSR in the crosshairs informs this claim (Hitchens paraphrasing Buchanan, considering things from the standpoint of the interests of GB):

After the Soviets annexed the Baltic States, they invaded Finland - where they were embarrassed by the non-existent Finnish military and little trained militia.

The Soviets were weak from constantly purging their own officers in the struggle for power. Hitler believed this inexperience would allow he and his generals complete domination from a strategic standpoint. If not for the coldest winter in a century, they would probably have been right.

In other words, Stalin had no real intentions of attacking Germany.

[Winehole23]

Sure. This is at least on topic, ChumpD. That's refreshing. Gingrich is an apt comparison.

[Winehole23]

In other words, Stalin had no real intentions of attacking Germany.Sure. This is on topic too. I agree with you.

As it turned out, Stalin didn't need to attack Germany. We gave half of Europe to him after the war.

[Winehole23]

It's not like WWII ended when hostilities ceased and Hitler was defeated. A lot of bad things came out of it too, and people are butthurt that Buchanan emphasizes bad historical consequences instead of working in the well worn and officially approved rut of the noble fight to stop Hitler and the Holocaust.

Hitler and the Holocaust aren't the whole story.

[z0sa]

Sure. This is on topic too. I agree with you.

As it turned out, Stalin didn't need to attack Germany. We gave half of Europe to him after the war.

So if Stalin was planning on sticking to their non-aggression pact, why did Hitler find it necessary to invade?

You aren't seeing the big picture. Some of what buchanan says isn't wrong, per se, its just way fucking off-base. There are reasons Hitler didn't find it necessary to have a huge or dominant navy, for example. It would have been impossible to allocate the natural resources necessary, for starters. Additionally, you really think England or France or even America would have let him rule the seas? That was the most important power to have before Hitler shattered all those rules and focused instead on creating a huge air force.

Or how about why only two-engine bombers that had short flight distances? Do you forget what blitzkrieg is exactly? The plan was never to fight a war of attrition, it was to move so quickly while cutting off supply lines that no one knew what hit them. And it was in 1936 that rearmament went into full swing - and Nazi scientists did not have the necessary technology for efficient 4 engine bombers at this time, but had already designed some of the best fighters and bombers of the war with 1/2 engines.

[Winehole23]

You tell me, z0sa. I'm guessing it has something to do with a Nordic madman and his insatiable lust for bloody war and territory.

[Winehole23]

So if Stalin was planning on sticking to their non-aggression pact, why did Hitler find it necessary to invade?

You aren't seeing the big picture. Some of what buchanan says isn't wrong, per se, its just way fucking off-base. There are reasons Hitler didn't find it necessary to have a huge or dominant navy, for example. It would have been impossible to allocate the natural resources necessary, for starters. Additionally, you really think England or France or even America would have let him rule the seas? That was the most important power to have before Hitler shattered all those rules and focused instead on creating a huge air force.

Or how about why only two-engine bombers that had short flight distances? Do you forget what blitzkrieg is exactly? The plan was never to fight a war of attrition, it was to move so quickly while cutting off supply lines that no one knew what hit them. And it was in 1936 that rearmament went into full swing - and Nazi scientists did not have the necessary technology for efficient 4 engine bombers at this time, but had already designed some of the best fighters and bombers of the war with 1/2 engines.You make sense, z0sa. It's nice to see a restrained, topical gloss. This is the sort of thing I was asking for pages ago.