Hitler's Germany invades Poland... September 1, 1939

Doesn't both sides in a war think that "RIGHT" is on their side? In a very real sense the Poles and others did "get in the way". Germany was being crushed by the Treaty of Versailles. Britian and France wanted super-powerdum and Germany wanted a piece of that pie too. Sooner or later the big boys on the block are going to duke it out to see who is the biggest and baddest big boy. There is plenty of blame to go around. Neither side wears a pure white hat

I'll have to disagree some with that mikewint, there was definitely wrong and right at stake in WW2, but the Allies muddied the issue by having to choose the lesser of two evils by taking Stalin as a partner.
I think the world would be in far worse a state if the Germany had be given free rein to accomplish what they wanted. As bad as Stalin was to the people he had power over, Hitler would have been far worse.

True to some extent, but Britain and France had a signed treaty with Poland. It was not a secret, the Germans knew it existed. The British and French did not see Poland get attacked and think after a few weeks it was a good opportunity to go to war with Germany. The Germans ( or Hitler?) thought the British and French would NOT HONOR their treaty obligations.
That is a rather different thing than what seems to be being implied here.

davebender said:

Several people on this forum are easily offended when discussing national politics and international diplomacy relating to WWII. So why don't we avoid that discussion and remain friends?

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No, I think they are just offended by revisionist histories.

That goes for people on both sides of the coin (axis/allies).

mikewint said:

Doesn't both sides in a war think that "RIGHT" is on their side? In a very real sense the Poles and others did "get in the way". Germany was being crushed by the Treaty of Versailles. Britian and France wanted super-powerdum and Germany wanted a piece of that pie too. Sooner or later the big boys on the block are going to duke it out to see who is the biggest and baddest big boy. There is plenty of blame to go around. Neither side wears a pure white hat

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Of course it takes two to make a fight. However, by 1939, Germany was not being crushed by Versailles. Most of the elements of Versailles, and then some were repeated after the war in 1945, and Germany was not crushed under that additional load. Its a convenient excuse often used to pedal German innocence pre-1939. Germany was not innocent, and Versailles was not crushing Germany by 1939. Versailles crushed Weimar, but not Hitlers Germany. Hitler had systematically torn up the treaty restrictions 1935-8. Thats what led to the re-occupation of the Rhineland, Anschluss, German rearmament, Sudeten and finally the destruction of the Czech state. In 1939 Hitler wanted to bluff his way through yet again on the issue of Danzig and the Danzig corridor, but the Allies were in no mood to trust him any more. if the allies are guilty or reacting to help a friend and no longer allowing the germans to trample allover a neighbour, then Britain and France (and Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa, as well as the territoies of the French and Britiah Empires) are all guilty as charged

A corner had been turned with the destruction of the Czech nation. Whereas everything that had gone before that had some legitimacy about it. hitler crossed a line in March 1939 with the final destruction of Czechoislovakia. That was a transformation from legitimate restoration of national pride to overt acts of aggression and enslavement of neighbouring states and peoples. Thats the difference between Hitlers Germany and countries like Britain and France. Whatever their shortcomings, the western powers were not characterised by overt aggression and wars of conquest in Europe (outside Europe is a different story, but colonial oppression was also coming to an end thankfully) . By 1939, that was exactly what the Germans were (acting overtly aggressively and in contravention to the rules of the League in Europe), and therin lies the difference between Britain and France on the one hand, and germany on the other. and its why, Germany was responsible for causing the war. And finallyk, to try and restore this thread back to what it should be about, its what caused the Poles 6 years of hell, and a further 50 years of occupation.

If Germany had acted in the same way as Britain and France, ther would have not been a war.

Wars are never about right and wrong, and almost always about strategic interests. The Right and Wrong is to mobilize the population to die for the cause. Britain and France became great powers by virtue of centuries of imperialistic aggression around the world.
The last thing they wanted was some upstart European powers stealing those empires from them. That was the basis of WW-I, but in simplistic fashion it was also the basis of WW-II

The Axis on a simplistic level believed they were doing the same thing....or at least that was there POV. Hitler declared that he was going to do to Eastern Europe and Russia, what the USA had already done to the American continent...I believe Americans referred to it as "manifest destiny".

Britain for its part, needed war to finance the arms build up, through emergency powers. The key problem was to not let German rebuild before it initiated a European wide war. Basic Allied strategy was to act defensively and let the Germans bash themselves to pieces through the Maginot line for a couple of years, while the allied combined airpower bombed the Germans back to the Stone age. So any help to Poland was mostly a symbolic gesture.

Several people on this forum are easily offended when discussing national politics and international diplomacy relating to WWII.

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I'm not easily offended by these things, Dave, I just think that what you are implying is a big pile of faeces and that you should know better than to believe the Nazis were innocent of the direct cause of WW2.

Geez, next you'll be claiming the Japanese were tricked into bombing Pearl Harbour...

psteel said:

Britain for its part, needed war to finance the arms build up, through emergency powers.

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Rubbish. Britain needed war like a hole in the head. You don't need a war to justify rearmament in a democratic state.The mere threat of war,an entirely different thing,suffices.

The idea that anyone but the usual lunatic fringe in Britain or France wanted a war with Germany is ridiculous. The Great War was still well within living memory and many of those countries leaders had fought in it. You could more reasonably argue that this led to a desperate urge to avoid war,almost at any cost. The appeasement policies of the 1930s simply reflect this.

Germany was a different kind of State. Here is not the place to discuss the sophisticated and complicated methods used bythe NSDAP to infiltrate its way into the everyday life of the German people nor the way German youth was being militarised.
As a simpler example the reaction of the average German,those that "went along" on the morning after "Kristallnacht" is revealing. Many threw stones at the remains of the shattered windows of Jewish businesses as they went to work.

Steve

Germany was a different kind of State. Here is not the place to discuss the sophisticated and complicated methods used bythe NSDAP to infiltrate its way into the everyday life of the German people nor the way German youth was being militarised.
As a simpler example the reaction of the average German,those that "went along" on the morning after "Kristallnacht" is revealing. Many threw stones at the remains of the shattered windows of Jewish businesses as they went to work.

Steve

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One of the most ridiculous statements I have read on this forum!

What do you want to imply stona?
What is your source.

From Neitzel and Momsen it is statistically proved from primary sources that the majority of the german people were dis gusted after and about the "Kristallnacht".
Next it is also statistically proved from primary sources that the majority of the german people didn't want war at summer 1939!

THe lost of WWI and the Versaille Treaty is a major impact, also the infiltration of the NSDAP but it is wrong and a myth that the majority of the german citizen wanted war or more worse were trigger-happy.

To me your statement and the message is completely wrong and plays in the same league as Dave statements about the german foreign policy.

Your statement has a touch of revisionist histories.

It's a quote from a victim. Part of an interview conducted for "The Nazis:A warning from history." I don't know if it got transmitted in the finished programme. Is that "primary" enough for you.
When further asked if a single person had expressed a condolence he paused and said,quietly "No,Noone".

Revisionism?

Stanley Baldwin November 1936.

" Supposing I had gone to the country and said that Germany was rearming and we must rearm, does anybody think that this pacific democracy would have rallied to that cry at that moment! I cannot think of anything that would have made the loss of the election from my point of view more certain..."

He said that,in a debate in the House of Commons when being needled by Churchill. I post it to make the point that in the UK we still had debates and politicians were still mindful of public opinion. This is not something you could say of Germany in November 1936. Germany had elected a regime which,to quote Churchill was going to lead Europe into a "new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science."
Or maybe they were just the victims of Anglo-French agression.

And Neville Chamberlain,on appeasement.

"It is not the duty of a Prime Minister to take his country into a war he believes it cannot win."

Steve

I don't think that we must discuss about Nazi politics.
I don't deny your statement about german politics and the Nazi party!

But what makes me realy angry ist that:

Germany was a different kind of State.

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As a simpler example the reaction of the average German,those that "went along" on the morning after "Kristallnacht" is revealing. Many threw stones at the remains of the shattered windows of Jewish businesses as they went to work.

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This in context with your statement about the will of peace at France and GB implies the "normal" german citizen and the majority of the citizen were pro violence and pro war. But that's wrong proved from primary sources.
The normal citizen didn't do the politics at the third reich, so please make your statements about Nazi politics but don't paint such a picture about normal german people, because this is revisionist history!

"... The normal citizen didn't do the politics at the third reich, so please make your statements about Nazi politics but don't paint such a picture about normal german people, because this is revisionist history ....!"

That is a fair point for a modern German to ask for, DonL, and one has to respect such a request ... but, one asks in return, that you, a modern German, acknowledge that the German people bought Adolph Hitler and all that he was selling -- as a means of reversing the disaster that had been WW1 -- to the ultimate destruction and discreditation of the German State in 1945.

Agreed?



MM

Those that "went along" was an expression used several times by people of that generation,sometimes to describe themselves.
Cheers
Steve

That is a fair point for a modern German to ask for, DonL, and one has to respect such a request ... but, one asks in return, that you, a modern German, acknowledge that the German people bought Adolph Hitler and all that he was selling -- as a means of reversing the disaster that had been WW1 -- to the ultimate destruction and discreditation of the German State in 1945.

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I don't have in general a problem with this statement but I would formulate it more sophisticated.
At the end Hitler did a coup to get the whole power at germany and the army and the police were more pro Nazi and not democratic.
So I have my problems with "the German people" bought Adolf Hitler!

Reichstagswahl 31 Juli 1932 NSDAP 37,4 %
Reichstagswahl 06 November 1932 NSDAP 33,1 %

This was the last free vote.
So you can say 1/3 of the voter bought Adolf Hitler and the Nazis but as you know voters are not eligible voter, so you can't say 1/3 of the german citizen bought Adolf Hitler.
So you can do the interpretation but it is a myth that the majority of the german people were pro Hitler, pro violence and pro war!

nuuumannn said:

I'm not easily offended by these things, Dave, I just think that what you are implying is a big pile of faeces and that you should know better than to believe the Nazis were innocent of the direct cause of WW2.

Geez, next you'll be claiming the Japanese were tricked into bombing Pearl Harbour...

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Lets not resort to personal attacks.

Personal attacks only lower the attackers own credibility.

We have gone over this a thousand times!

And to everyone else:

In the end I suggest that this thread gets back to the topic at hand, or I will close it, and then another interesting discussion will be ruined.

DonL said:

So you can say 1/3 of the voter bought Adolf Hitler and the Nazis but as you know voters are not eligible voter, so you can't say 1/3 of the german citizen bought Adolf Hitler.

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That is about the same percentage of the electorate than typically vote for the party that forms the government in the UK. Around 10m votes will get you in to represent all 60m of us.

Noone is claiming that the majority of German people were pro-violence,pro-war or even pro-nazi. They did what people everywhere tend to do,they just keep their heads down,and try and get on with their lives. It's a sort of apathy that can be dangerous,even in a democracy.
Many people deny direct knowledge of what was going on whilst admitting to having at least a feeling. You have a useful word "ahnung" which is often used.

Of course when confronted with direct evidence,like the lady in the film who had signed her denunciation of a lesbian neighbour to the "Gestapo", things get a bit more difficult. She couldn't deny her own signature. That neighbour died in Ravensbruck. It is difficult for us now to understand the insidious influence of the nazi state on its citizens.

Steve

Lets not resort to personal attacks.

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Sorry Moderator. It wasn't intended as an attack against Dave personally, just against what he was implying.

Sept. 11, 1939, FDR writes Mr. Chamberlain a personal note. It hearlds what will become known as "Lend-lease"

I dont think the majority of germans supported war, I dont think the majority of Germans were pro Nazi either, in the sense that the Nazis wanted war. Most germans in the early 30's wanted relief from the economic hardships of the depression , they also wanted some justice (as they saw it) from the humiliation of Versaille.

In the beginning Hitler worked to those aspirations. Using an essentially keynesian economic model, Hitler got germany working again......and then gradually many of those workers were tranferred to armament production, a subtle but dangerous shift .

Hitler at the same time worked to right the perceived "injustices" brought about by Versailles. Whether Versailles was in fact an injustice or not is an altogether different debate. i happen to think it was not. Germany at the end of WWI should have been forced to the negotiating Table unconditionally, as Pershing had advocated. But they werent. The treaty was supposed to follow Wilsons "14 points" but ended up being a nasty petty but inneffective treaty. Because it was a relatively benign negotiated settlement, but with typically French nastiness about it, it fostered the myth in post war germany that she had been "stabbed in the back","betrayed", and "undefeated".

Whatever the truth about Versailles, the perception across Europe in the 1930s was that it had injustices about it, so as Hitler worked to eliminate those "injustices", many European neighbours, anxious for peace, allowed the Germans to tear up the treaty restrictions. Fair enough. I dont agree with the thinking but i can understand it. But Hitler never had the slightest intention of just getting rid of Versailles. as is clearly set out in his manifesto, he intended to embark on an aggressive war of conquest and enslavement in Europe, with the objective of establishing "colonies" and "living space" in Eastern Europe. It was consciously decided in those formative years that the current occupants were not human, "untermenschen" that were like vermin to be ruthlessly exterminated. How anyone can work or believe that position to be reasonable or justafiable at any level is beyond me. It was that thinking, and the actions that served to achieve that outcome, that led to the outbreak of WWII in the traditional sense, and the immense suffering of the Polish people. We should never forget that.

While I agree with your post parsifal, I did ask a few posts above that we get back to the topic.