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Sure... He wrote, "Even when Poland was attacked, Western involvement was nominal. It was only after the total conquest of Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and France, and the near-death experience of Great Britain did the West get serious."
1) Poland was certainly invaded by both Germany and the Soviet Union. But Britain and France declared war on Germany and then allied with the Soviets. Why?
Moreover, why did Germany actually invade Poland? And before you answer, let me continue...
2) There was no conquest of Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, or France. And in-essence, the military-occupation of all of these countries was fundamentally an act of self-defense.
The purpose of the German-invasion of Poland is complicated. Poland had refused a corridor for Germany between East Prussia and Germany proper. This made it impossible for Hitler to mobilize troops in the defense of East Prussia in the event of aggression from the expansionist Soviet Union, while leaving East Prussia economically-isolated from the rest of Germany.
Before WWI, Poland didn't exist as a country. After WWI, Poland was given many lands, some of which were majority-German. After WWI, nearly a million Germans left Poland because they felt persecuted by the new Polish government. Many left for the "Free City of Danzig", which was 95% German on the eve of WWII.
Not long before the invasion of Poland, Hitler had demanded Poland return the city of Danzig to Germany, and for a vote to be held in the Polish Corridor, consisting of only those Poles and Germans who lived there before WWI, on whether they wanted the territory to remain in Polish hands, or to become part of Germany. Poland refused to allow a vote.
And why did Poland refuse? Because they didn't want to let go of an inch of their territory(the same as any other country), and they were given a war-guarantee by the British Empire, that if any country invaded, then Britain and her empire would come to Poland's defense.
And why did Britain give Poland, which was ruled by a Junta of Polish colonels, and who had joined Hitler in carving up Czechoslovakia, a war guarantee? Not because it was the right thing to do, but because Germany was becoming too powerful, which was suddenly a threat to the great "British Empire".
And why did Britain not declare war on the Soviet Union who also invaded Poland? Because Hitler was perceived as a greater threat to Britain's power, and Britain couldn't afford to go to war with both Germany and the Soviet Union.
And what happened as a consequence of WWII? The Soviets gobbled up all of Eastern-Europe(including all of Poland), and tens of millions died. In fact, the Soviets never gave Poland back the half of its territory they took at the beginning of WWII, instead they "compensated" Poland later with more German territory, and then expelled the Germans who lived there.
So what then was the purpose of the Nazi occupation of France, the Low-countries, and Norway? Well, after the Germans invaded Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany, and for nearly a year nothing happened in what would be called the "Phoney-war".
After many months of technically being at war, Britain began to make plans for an invasion of Germany. It brought nearly a half-million British troops into France, as well as tanks, trucks, and all other manner of military equipment.
In fact, much of the Siegfried line was built after WWII began. But it wouldn't have been enough to stop a French/English invasion. German generals, like American generals, believed the best defense is a strong offense. To stop the French and English invasion, they intended to outflank the British and French forces with a Blitzkrieg through Belgium, around the Maginot-line.
The French force positioned near the German border was cut-off and encircled by the German Army, which then marched on Paris. While the English force in Normandy was encircled and pushed into the sea at Dunkirk. Where many believe Hitler issued a stop-order for three days which allowed the British to evacuate their entire Army.
The Germans never occupied all of France, it only held the coasts, especially at Normandy, to prevent another English invasion. It also occupied the Low-Countries, Denmark, and Norway. But again, to make sure these countries wouldn't be used as bases for a British invasion.
In fact, Winston Churchill had planned to occupy Norway to stop iron ore shipments from Sweden and Norway from reaching Germany. Most of these shipments were through the port of Narvik, and Britain began to place mines in the port to prevent German trade.
3) I don't know what he means by "The West getting serious". I assume he means America, because the concept of "The West" didn't even exist in 1940. The French had an Empire, and the British had an Empire that sprawled across the world. Spain was fighting with itself. And Sweden and Switzerland were happily trading with Hitler because it was good money. Let-alone Italy and several other European countries actually allying with Hitler. And the Soviet Union wasn't exactly "The West".
And the only reason America became involved in WWII, was because it was in our national interests, especially since our banks and corporations were making a killing financing the war.
In fact, the allies borrowed so much money from us that they couldn't even pay us anymore. So we passed the Lend-Lease Act, which allowed them to effectively purchase as much of our stuff as they needed, and just pay us back at the end of the war. And because they were in so much debt to us, and they had no gold left to pay us, we forced on them something called the "Bretton Woods system", where they could trade directly for US dollars with their own floating currencies to bypass the need to hold any gold.
4) Britain was never really "near-death", because the goal of Germany was never to invade Britain. Hitler tried repeatedly for a peace-treaty with Britain. The purpose of the Battle of Britain, was not to invade Britain, but to destroy the British Air Force, so that they would stop bombing German cities, stop the Naval Blockade, and to stop attacking German ships on the open-ocean.
Does that make America the moral-equivalent of Nazi-Germany? And would it have justified a British invasion of the United States? And was Britain the good guy in WWII? Keeping in mind it was maintaining an empire by force, including India, which only gained its independence after WWII because Britain had been bankrupted and destroyed, and could no longer maintain its empire by force.
In much of the old British Empire, America merely replaced Britain.
People have tried to transform WWII into basically "Hitler vs the world", and then characterized Hitler as a madman.
No government is ruled by a single man. All governments are oligarchies, where a handful of rich and powerful elites hold all the power. Hitler was elected democratically because his brand of nationalism meant huge infrastructure spending, military spending, and subsidies/protections to Germany businesses(IE the elites supported him and helped him get elected).
Germany was merely pursuing its national interests, just like all other nations. And any attempt to inject morality into statesmanship is a waste of time. States are fundamentally secular and amoral entities. Always have been, always will be. And that includes the United States of America. Who would imprison you or kill you the moment you got in its way, and then justify its actions to the morons around here, by claiming you were treasonous, a domestic-terrorist, espousing hate-speech, or were otherwise a threat to the safety and stability of the United States(IE an enemy of the state).
Last edited by Redshadowz; 12-05-2018 at 04:10 AM..
I agree with a lot of what you wrote, although I have a couple of issues.
Fistly the German's did have plans to invade Britain, however the Royal Navy was the largest navy in the world at the time and the German Navy was no match, so invasion was going to be very difficult and the Germans would have had to have established air superiority.
The Germans had a much larger airforce, however they didn't realise the British had something new called radar, which they didn't have and we knew exactly where they were. This coupled with the skill of the RAF Pilots and the fact that the RAF had some very good aircraft in the Spitfire and Hurricane, led an outnumbered RAF gaining air superiority over the Luftwaffe and from then on with Britain having naval superiority coupled wsith naval superiority there was little prospect of an invasion by Germany.
Britain was quite an inventive country, and we caused the Germans all kinds of problems, from Barnes Wallis and his bouncing bombs that detroyed the Ruhr Dam, flooding the Ruhr area, a major German armaments centre through to the Hedgehog Anti-Submarine Projector which fired up to 24 spigot mortars ahead of a ship when attacking a U-boat and helped defeat the U-Boat threat, through to helping to break the German codes such as the Enigma code and the Lorenz Cipher (Tunny) as well as building the worlds first super computer to break codes which we named Colossus, indeed in the end we knew what the Germans were doing before even Berlin did.
In terms of the Empire or Commonwealth, brave service personnel from all over the Commonwealth fought side by sde with British Service Personnel, and even after countries were later given their independence they retained close relations and still do today.
The point he is trying to make is, if you merely come out and virtue-signal by saying things like "There is no reason to hit a woman", then you never ask or understand what even happened.
Why did Hitler hate the Jews? And was it only Hitler? Or was anti-semitism a worldwide phenomenon(think Henry Ford's "The International Jew")?
And is anti-semitism still a worldwide phenomenon? Why?
It can best be summed-up in this quote....
"Auschwitz meant that six million Jews were killed, and thrown on the waste-heap of Europe, for what they were considered: money-Jews. Finance capital and the banks, the hard core of the system of imperialism and capitalism, had turned the hatred of men against money and exploitation, and against the Jews. . . . Antisemitism is really a hatred of capitalism." - Ulrike Meinhof
This portrayal of Jews as helpless and innocent victims who merely became scapegoats for Hitler's rage, is simply not true. The Jews, like today, were the bankers and the capitalists who ran almost everything. And while the German people became impoverished after WWI, and their money became worthless from hyperinflation, the bankers got rich. And these bankers, who were international in scale, financed both sides of WWI, which Hitler called war-profiteering.
So the German Jews got rich by making loans to Germany's enemies in WWI, and then those loans were guaranteed by a Treaty of Versailles, which forced the German people to repay all of the war debt of all the countries in WWI. And when Germany couldn't pay, France occupied the "Ruhr" and began confiscating coal and steel as payment.
And this was after nearly a million Germans starved to death because of the British blockade of Germany in WWI, which was held in place long after the armistice, to force Germany to sign the Treaty of Versailles.
Fistly the German's did have plans to invade Britain, however the Royal Navy was the largest navy in the world at the time and the German Navy was no match, so invasion was going to be very difficult and the Germans would have had to have established air superiority.
To be fair, America has a plan to invade every country on Earth, because that is what they do all day at the Pentagon, make plans for invading/defending.
The point I was trying to make is, Hitler NEVER wanted war with Britain. He said it over and over again, and in fact, asked for an alliance with Britain repeatedly.
And the point of the Battle of Britain, was to force Britain to sign a peace-treaty(IE please England leave me alone and stop bombing me), because Hitler's goal had always been the Soviet Union, and having a two-front war with Britain tied up too many resources which needed to go East.
Britain was quite an inventive country, and we caused the Germans all kinds of problems, from Barnes Wallis and his bouncing bombs that detroyed the Ruhr Dam, flooding the Ruhr area, a major German armaments centre through to the Hedgehog Anti-Submarine Projector which fired up to 24 spigot mortars ahead of a ship when attacking a U-boat and helped defeat the U-Boat threat, through to helping to break the German codes such as the Enigma code and the Lorenz Cipher (Tunny), indeed in the end we knew what the Germans were doing before even Berlin did.
While I agree with you, I think you should read this before you go sucking your own dick too hard.
To be fair, America has a plan to invade every country on Earth, because that is what they do all day at the Pentagon, make plans for invading/defending.
The point I was trying to make is, Hitler NEVER wanted war with Britain. He said it over and over again, and in fact, asked for an alliance with Britain repeatedly.
And the point of the Battle of Britain, was to force Britain to sign a peace-treaty, because Hitler's goal had always been the Soviet Union, and having a two-front war with Britain tied up too many resources which needed to go East.
While I agree with you, I think you should read this before you go sucking your own dick too hard.
I see my country, and the world, exactly for what it is.
The whole point of the Battle of Britain was air superiority as a prelide to invasion, we had already tried to negotiate with Hitler numerous times. In reality Hitler had expected the British to seek a peace settlement after Germany’s defeat of France and the British withdrawl at Dunkirk, but Britain fought on, and it was at this point he made plans for Operation Sea Lion, and the invasion of Britain and to do ths he instructed the Luftwaffe to gain air superiority and destroy the RAF.
Here's some fats regarding the Battle of Britain courtesty of the Imperial War Museum in London.
Also what has your posts regarding aerial bombing got to do with anything, as firstly Britain was badly bombed during the blitz and later via V1 and V2 flying bombs and had every right to bomb Germany. As for Bulgaria it was bomb ed in 1944, long after the blitz and during the time when the Germans were sending flying bombs across the channel to hit London at the same time as we were bombing them.
As for the Germans they started what they called 'total war' on the 14th November 1940 when the Luftwaffe nearly wiped the British City of Coventry off the map.
Secondly Soviet Artillery was much more destructive than any Allied Bombing, and Germans were far more fearful of the Soviets who clearly wanted revenge after the murder and starvation of over 13 million of their civilians coupled with over 8 million military deaths. Although it should be noted that Britain did help the Soviets during WW2 via the Arctic Convoys.
Finally, the US was part of the same allied bombing, and also bombed Tokyo and even used Atomic weapons in terms of Japan. A few decades later the US would drop more bombs in South East Asia than were dropped in the whole of WW2, and drone attacks including the controversial double tap have been US policy in recent decades. Whilst the US mainland cities have never been bombed.
Last edited by Brave New World; 12-05-2018 at 04:34 AM..
The whole point of the Battle of Britain was air superiority as a prelide to invasion, we had already tried to negotiate with Hitler numerouds times.
Even your link says otherwise.
"Following the Fall of France, Adolf Hitler, the German Führer and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, hoped the British government would seek a peace agreement and he reluctantly considered invasion only as a last resort if all other options failed."
Can you please explain what you mean by negotiate? What were your demands?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brave New World
Also what have your posts refarding aerial bombing got to do with anything, as firstly Britain was badly bombed during the blitz and later via V1 and V2 flying bombs and had every right to bomb Germany.
If you had actually read the links you would realize that "indiscriminate bombings" happened under Churchill even before the Blitz. And the Blitz, although it often killed civilians, never targeted civilians.
And in fact, more German civilians died in one night in the bombing of Dresden, than the number of British civilians who died from any causes in the entire war.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brave New World
Secondly Soviet Artillery was much more destructive than any Allied Bombing, and Germans were far more fearful of the Soviets who clearly wanted revenge after the murder and starvation of over 13 million of their civilians coupled with over 8 million military deaths.Although it should benoted thar Britain did help the Soviets during WW2 via the Atlantic Convoys.
Again, Germany NEVER wanted war with Britain. Why don't you understand this? It was Britain who declared war on Germany. It was Britain who brought 450,000 troops to France for an invasion of Germany.
If Britain had merely said, I don't want to fight you Germany, there wouldn't have been a fight, and likewise with France. Germany's only concern was with the Soviet Union.
And the only thing that stopped the Soviet Union from sweeping across Europe, was the intervention of the United States. Britain destroyed itself foolishly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brave New World
Finally, the US was part of the same allied bombing, and also bombed Tokyo and even used Atomic weapons in terms of Japan. A few decades later the US would drop more bombs in South East Asia than were dropped in the whole of WW2, and drone attacks including the controversial double tap have been US policy in recent decades.
I can bash my country better than almost anyone. Tell me something I don't know.
"Following the Fall of France, Adolf Hitler, the German Führer and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, hoped the British government would seek a peace agreement and he reluctantly considered invasion only as a last resort if all other options failed."
Can you please explain what you mean by negotiate? What were your demands?
If you had actually read the links you would realize that "indiscriminate bombings" happened under Churchill even before the Blitz. And the Blitz, although it often killed civilians, never targeted civilians.
And in fact, more German civilians died in one night in the bombing of Dresden, than the number of British civilians who died from any causes in the entire war.
I would love to know where these mass bo,bing carried out by the British happened prior to the Blitz and the devastation of Coventry, when Britain didn't even have air superiority and Germany had invaded half of Europe.
The Bombing of Dresden was a Allied British and American operation carried out in 1945. Dresden being a major communications centre and a major rail junction, which helped take thousands of Jews to Nazi death camps.
Furthermore US bombing including the atomic bombs in Japan killed far more people than any British boming, as did the Sovoiet Artiillery which rained down on German cities.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Redshadowz
Again, Germany NEVER wanted war with Britain. Why don't you understand this? It was Britain who declared war on Germany. It was Britain who brought 450,000 troops to France for an invasion of Germany.
If Britain had merely said, I don't want to fight you Germany, there wouldn't have been a fight, and likewise with France. Germany's only concern was with the Soviet Union.
By 1940 Hitler had made plans to invade Britain, as it became clear thar Britain was not going to surrender and let Nazi Germany dominate Europe.
"Since England, in spite of her hopeless military situation, shows no signs of being ready to come to a compromise, I have decided to prepare a landing operation against England, and, if necessary, to carry it out"
And the only thing that stopped the Soviet Union from sweeping across Europe, was the intervention of the United States. Britain destroyed itself foolishly.
I can bash my country better than almost anyone. Tell me something I don't know.
Oh yes, the US saved the day and won WW2 single handedly.
Actually there is little evidence to suggest the Soviets had any ambitions to invade Europe, it wasn't until Truman made his mouth go and the US started it's offensive against communism, that the Soviets decided to build a defensive pact and started invading more countries.
I'm wrong insofar as indiscriminate-bombings by Churchill didn't come till after the Blitz was already underway. But Britain was bombing German targets long before the Blitz.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brave New World
The Bombing of Dresden was a Allied British and American operation carried out in 1945. Dresden being a major communications centre and a major rail junction, which helped take thousands of Jews to Nazi death camps.
Did Churchill intentionally bomb cities with effectively zero military significance, just to terrorize the German population, yes or no? You can justify it all you want.
"Many felt that the Germans deserved to reap the whirlwind they had sown. Yet Bomber Command's policy of targeting residential areas clearly contradicted Chamberlain's pre-war statement in parliament that it was 'against international law to bomb civilians as such and to make deliberate attacks on the civilian population'. How could a nation so proud of its high moral standards drop bombs on women and children?"
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brave New World
By 1940 Hitler had made plans to invade Britain, as it became clear that Britain was not going to surrender and let Nazi Germany dominate Europe.
Hitler DID NOT want to invade Britain. And he said the ONLY way that he would invade Britain, is if Germany had won both Naval and Air power, and Britain still refused to peace. Germany did not want to dominate England, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Norway, the Low-Countries, Denmark, Finland, Romania, Greece, etc. His focus was always squarely on "The East", because he was terrified of communism and Stalin.
Everything that happened West of Poland was a response to Britain and France declaring war on Germany after the invasion of Poland(which the Soviet Union also took part).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brave New World
Actually there is little evidence to suggest the Soviets had any ambitions to invade Europe, it wasn't until Truman made his mouth go and the US started it's offensive against communism, that the Soviets decided to build a defensive pact and started invading more countries.
This is debatable. But what is absolutely true is, the Soviets demanded and got a lot from Roosevelt at the various conferences. And the communist system was always supposed to be a worldwide revolution. They had been trying to export the revolution since the day the Bolsheviks took over in 1917. And invading countries was just as good for spreading communism as an internal revolution.
Last edited by Redshadowz; 12-05-2018 at 05:34 AM..
People have tried to transform WWII into basically "Hitler vs the world"....
Thank you for your response. I am, however, at work and thus limiting my reply. Basically there's little in your lengthier post that does not line up with "Hitler vs. the world." That is what it came down to.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Redshadowz
....and then characterized Hitler as a madman.
I'll leave that one for the many Holocaust and/or psychological history threads.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Redshadowz
And that includes the United States of America. Who would imprison you or kill you the moment you got in its way, and then justify its actions to the morons around here, by claiming you were treasonous, a domestic-terrorist, espousing hate-speech, or were otherwise a threat to the safety and stability of the United States(IE an enemy of the state).
That one, without further explanation, I cannot go with.
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