The German heroes who helped Allies against Hitler

[Maestro]

Udet, you seems to have answers to everything so I'll ask you a question...

In the Canadian Army, the rookies (non-commissionned and commissionned officers) have to take an oath. In this oath, they swear allegiance to the King/Queen but there is no mention of our country or our flag. So here is the question : if ever there was a war against England, who would be the traitor in your book ? The Canadian soldier fighting the British or the Canadian soldier fighting for the Queen against his homeland ?

Think about it... Of course the Queen isn't Hitler, but it was approximately the same thing for Germans during WWII.

 

[Hop]

I´ll mention one case that is widely known to the public: there was a moment during 1940 when Hitler offered peace to Good Guy Churchill, with hard evidence to support the authenticity of the offer (example: letting the BEF flee Dunkirk, saving it from either captivity or annihilation on the field)

I'd really like to see some evidence for this peace offer. As to "letting" the Dunkirk evacuation go ahead, the German army called a temporary halt to operations for perfectly valid reasons. They resumed attacks on the Dunkirk pocket a couple of days later.

And don't forget the role of the Luftwaffe. If Hitler was "letting" the British army escape, why did the Luftwaffe carry out so many attacks, and kill so many British soldiers? Were thousands of dead likely to impress Churchill with how nice a man Hitler was? Not just off Dunkirk either, at least 3,000, including over 1,000 civilians, were killed when the Luftwaffe sank the Lancastria off St Nazaire.


Any German who worked against the Nazi regime was working for Germany, not against it. Don't forget, the Nazis murdered large numbers of Germans, too, apart from the millions of deaths they caused by starting the war. German Jews, disabled people, left wing political activists, homosexuals, in total between half and three quarters of a million Germans were murdered by their own government.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I do not think i can let you know my opinions that would explain this phenomena, because you are a German yourself and i am completely sure you would not like my views, at all.

Because those views are wrong...

I am sorry but I have heard your views on the German people and fankly they are quite wrong and you dont know them as much as you think you do. You need to actually live among them to understand them. Visiting Germany and knowing a few people does not give you the whole picture.

And no it is not because of Allied Propaganda as you blame everything one...

 

[Watanbe]

just reading above im hearing two major opinions going back and forth...Adlers and Udet's. I think that you both make a good point and are both correct. I believe that it works both ways.

 

[Njaco]

Not so simple, Watanbe. I see the government of my beloved country involved in a major war, murdering its civilians and others, so I decide to work to change things.

I'm to be viewed as a Traitor and a Hero?

 

[Watanbe]

well I think that it depends on the circumstances. I think some of those fighting for Britain should be treated as heroes and others shouldnt be so quickly branded as such...if they are so willing to flee and change to british identity to help opposition...they are traitors... I think it is different for people like Jews who had their country turn its back on them and treat them like absolute ****.


So i mean at the end of the day its how each individual interprets it.

"opinions are like asseholes everyone has one"

 

[Udet]

I'd really like to see some evidence for this peace offer. As to "letting" the Dunkirk evacuation go ahead, the German army called a temporary halt to operations for perfectly valid reasons. They resumed attacks on the Dunkirk pocket a couple of days later.

And don't forget the role of the Luftwaffe. If Hitler was "letting" the British army escape, why did the Luftwaffe carry out so many attacks, and kill so many British soldiers? Were thousands of dead likely to impress Churchill with how nice a man Hitler was? Not just off Dunkirk either, at least 3,000, including over 1,000 civilians, were killed when the Luftwaffe sank the Lancastria off St Nazaire.


Any German who worked against the Nazi regime was working for Germany, not against it. Don't forget, the Nazis murdered large numbers of Germans, too, apart from the millions of deaths they caused by starting the war. German Jews, disabled people, left wing political activists, homosexuals, in total between half and three quarters of a million Germans were murdered by their own government.

Yes, the Germans started the war, but they also tried to put an end to all military actions in the west as early as in 1940, right after France surrendered and -yes- the BEF was allowed to escape from Dunkerque.

This the leanest exampe of the allied state of denial...Dunkerque will now be portrayed as a German "inability" or "failure" to either crush or capture the BEF. I leave this matter to psychiatry.

That you, Hop, have issues accepting and recognizing Germany did offer peace to England has absolutely no effect on the facts.

This is one of the most repulsive issues of the war: at least in the west the war could have lasted...less than a year.

Politicians and their fateful decisions...Churchill was stupid. Germany posed no threat whatsoever against the interests of the British Empire, at least not in the short term, at all. Had Germany attained peace in the west, then they switch their firepower against the east, the main goal...had they won there, England would have had to deal with an even more super powerful Germany, just like they had to with the "ally" USSR during the Cold War.

What happened with the Soviet Union during the Cold War? This business partner of the Brits and USAers plundered, deported and murdered way beyond Hitler´s wildest fantasies and estimations...the fact the Soviet Union, with its size, resources and geopolitical influence failed to attain anything like "submerging the world in opression and terror" should further illustrate German could have never come close to "opress the world" had it won the war...that is an argument many people say don´t they...that they fought Germany to secure liberty, democracy and human life right?

You are all saying that if Great Britain had accepted the German offer, Hitler would eventually reverse the deal; i can neither affirm nor deny this. We are talking about politicians; politicians have agendas. But in the short term the bulk of the German firepower would have been deployed and stationed in the east, with no resources enough to put Great Britain at "risk", could Hitler indeed believe the time to betray England had come.



Rather the REAL threat against the British Empire was gestating elsewhere, more specifically some 12,000 kilometers away from the British Islands, in TOKYO. Ever heard of the fall of Singapore in 1942? The devastating effects of such defeat were still being felt within the ranks of the British military well after the end of WW2.

Had Good Guy Churchill accepted German terms following the fall of France, then there is no U-boat campaign in the Atlantic...no frenzied calls to deploy almost the entire Home Fleet to pursue the Bismarck...oh crap! the dimensions of this pressure-relief event are hard to assess...one thing for sure though: the Royal Navy can now send a significant naval force to secure the Far East possessions, and not only the two ill-fated HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse, which were sent to the bottom as fast and easy as a little child sinks his toy ships in a bucket of water in the backyard.

Even if waging war both in Europe and the Far East was beyond the means of the British Empire by the time, Churchill could have accepted Hitler´s terms for peace, and proceed to properly secure British colonies and military forces in the Far East to at least deter Japanese intentions on British possessions in the region.

Whatever the approach, Churchill fails the test; we have a rejected pupil; his obssession lied in the wrong place; where the real threat was he either did not know -which seems quite unlikely in view of the alleged "superb" British intelligence services which, as they put it, cracke and read absolutely everything coming from the German codes-, or if he did know his actions were wrong, failing to secure the interests of the Empire.

What of Japan´s reaction had Churchill accepted German terms for peace thus putting an end to the war in Europe? Would they still proceed to attack Pearl Harbor?

Churchill´s stupidity and mediocrity made a significant contribution to what would eventually become the dissolution of the British Empire in decades to come.

As it happens almost everywhere on earth, those national figures praised and adored, the heroes, the Ultimate Statesman, do not really deserve all that limelight and credit.

A same thing applies in the case of Hitler, right after the overwhelmingly crushing victories attained by the Wehrmacht during the first months of Barbarossa in the soviet union, the Führer should have then resorted to politics and dictate some terms to finish the war in that region, even if the outlined goals for the military operation had not yet been attained; the frightened political spheres in Moscow would have gladly accepted any terms to put an end to war in the east.

Hitler too was stupid there.

So if we consider these facts, it is not daring to affirm the war in Europe could have been terminated, say, in early 1942. The war could have lasted half its actual duration.

Politicians and their fateful decision which costed the lives of millions of soldiers and civilians.

 

[Njaco]

Politicians and their fateful decision which costed the lives of millions of soldiers and civilians.

That should probably go for every war. I remember someone saying an Army is just an extenstion of political policy (or something similar).

 

[Maestro]

Yeah, and I think (but I'm not sure) that it was actually De Gaulle who said that. How ironic, eh ?

 

[The Basket]

Dunkirk was a tactical failure for Hitler. But then again he could not expect the evacuation to have been so successful. Even the Royal Navy were not hopeful.

How many countries did Hitler invade? Did Hitler start the war? He wanted war and got it. So the question of war and peace is purely Hitlers. He invaded countries which were no threat to him. He invaded Belgium and Holland which were nuetral and he even signed a treaty with Belgium! Goering said that treaties were toilet paper. Even broke his treaty with Stalin when suited.

Peace by terror. No thanks.

 

[Njaco]

There are many reasons for war and if we talk WW II we must include Japan, Italy, etc. and not lay it all on Hitler. I am in now way supporting that lunatic but his hand wasn't the only one in the cookie jar.

What was Hitler's motivation besides his hatred? The Versailles Treaty? Then you would have to understand how that war started. The shots in Sarajevo were caused by what? (beside the gun).

Japan's expansionists plans. Caused by an inability to adjust as a civilized country? The embargoes from the US?

Threads of Cause are sometimes hard to follow.

 

[Hop]

Yes, the Germans started the war, but they also tried to put an end to all military actions in the west as early as in 1940, right after France surrendered

You mean after achieving their aims they offered a truce so they could pursue their aims in the east? Of course.

But that's not some magnanimous gesture, it's the Nazis looking for more profitable pickings elsewhere.

and -yes- the BEF was allowed to escape from Dunkerque.

Please, some evidence for this. Just one shred.

The facts are von Runstead issued the halt order on the 23rd. Hitler learnt of it on the 24th, and with Goering promising to destroy the British army with air power, confirmed it. On the 26th the order was revoked, and the ground forces began attacks again. On the 28th Guderian told Kleist that his panzer divisions had only half their tank strength left and were in urgent need of time to reorganise. He also said that the marshy ground was unsuitable for tanks and the fighting would be better left to infantry.

Those are the facts. There was a brief pause in the offensive towards Dunkirk for purely military reasons, ordered first by the army, confirmed by Hitler. At the same time, the weight of the Luftwaffe was deployed against Dunkirk.

Don't blame political reasons for the failure of the Luftwaffe to carry out one of Goering's boasts, they proved quite capable of that in the BoB, at Stalingrad, over Germany, etc.

This the leanest exampe of the allied state of denial...Dunkerque will now be portrayed as a German "inability" or "failure" to either crush or capture the BEF. I leave this matter to psychiatry.

Why not leave it to the historical record? Just some suggestion in original documents that the British were to be "allowed" to escape to facilitate a peace deal (which makes no sense anyway, because the British would be more likely to seek peace with the bulk of their army captured)

That you, Hop, have issues accepting and recognizing Germany did offer peace to England has absolutely no effect on the facts.

Please, I am waiting to see a fact from you. Just one. Instead of your opinion stated as fact.

This is one of the most repulsive issues of the war: at least in the west the war could have lasted...less than a year.

Repulsive? That the British continued fighting against the Nazis?

Let's be honest. Hitler wanted Britain to surrender so that he could invade Russia, murder millions of its people, and take the land and resources for the Aryan race.

I don't find the idea of stopping that repulsive.

Politicians and their fateful decisions...Churchill was stupid. Germany posed no threat whatsoever against the interests of the British Empire, at least not in the short term, at all.

In the long term allowing a genocidal German regime to absorb most of Europe presented a major risk to Britain. Which is why they went to war over Poland in the first place.

had they won there, England would have had to deal with an even more super powerful Germany, just like they had to with the "ally" USSR during the Cold War.

The difference was the Communists showed they were sane, the Nazis showed they were not.

The Communists, for all their bluster, never once launched a war against a major power. The Nazis, in a few short years, attacked almost all the major powers.

What happened with the Soviet Union during the Cold War? This business partner of the Brits and USAers plundered, deported and murdered way beyond Hitler´s wildest fantasies and estimations

Um, no.

Whilst their were many deaths and displaced in Europe in the immediate aftermath of the war (and how could ethnic Germans remain in Poland after the way Poles had been treated by Germans?), from 1948 to 1989 Communist rule in Europe was oppressive but nothing like genocidal. The number of people killed by the regimes was in the thousands, rather than millions killed by the Nazis in a much shorter time period.

the fact the Soviet Union, with its size, resources and geopolitical influence failed to attain anything like "submerging the world in opression and terror" should further illustrate German could have never come close to "opress the world" had it won the war...that is an argument many people say don´t they...that they fought Germany to secure liberty, democracy and human life right?

The difference is the Communists never, ever, tried an all out attack against a world power. The Germans, if Britain had made peace with them, would at least have controlled all of continental Europe, leaving only a depleted Britain and the US to oppose them.

WW2 ended with Britain, France, most of Germany and the US opposing the Soviets. That's a much better balance.

Even if waging war both in Europe and the Far East was beyond the means of the British Empire by the time, Churchill could have accepted Hitler´s terms for peace, and proceed to properly secure British colonies and military forces in the Far East to at least deter Japanese intentions on British possessions in the region.

Right. Adolf "I have no further territorial demands in Europe" Hitler signs a peace deal at Munich in 1938. In 1939 he invades Czechoslovakia. Then Poland. Then Denmark and Norway. Then France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Then he signs another peace deal.

And the British will trust him so much they send all their forces to the far east?

What of Japan´s reaction had Churchill accepted German terms for peace thus putting an end to the war in Europe? Would they still proceed to attack Pearl Harbor?

Considering the US would have been even less prepared in this fantasy world, probably yes. Remember, the US armaments industry wouldn't have had British billions to expand production. With no war in western Europe, US military production would have been at the level it was in the late 30s.

And Japan could have attacked just the US, and maybe the Dutch. No need to take on the British as well.

Whatever the approach, Churchill fails the test; we have a rejected pupil;

Oh what a strange upside-down world you live in. The Germans the good guys, Churchill the bad guy. Churchill the fool who got it all wrong.

For most people in the west, Churchill was right, because he helped bring down the Nazis. But in your world that was the wrong outcome, the world would be better if only the Nazis had won.

Churchill´s stupidity and mediocrity made a significant contribution to what would eventually become the dissolution of the British Empire in decades to come.

The British Empire was dissolving anyway. Canada, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa had already become Dominions, meaning they were effectively independent. Ireland was independent. India was on the way to dominion status.

That left only the bits that cost a lot of money to run, but with very little return.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Yes, the Germans started the war, but they also tried to put an end to all military actions in the west as early as in 1940, right after France surrendered and -yes- the BEF was allowed to escape from Dunkerque.

Udet to think that Germany wanted peace with England for the sake of peace is very naive. Hitler may very well have wanted peace but only to gain an advantage for his real plans to invade Russia. In the end England would have been at war with Germany again...

This the leanest exampe of the allied state of denial...Dunkerque will now be portrayed as a German "inability" or "failure" to either crush or capture the BEF. I leave this matter to psychiatry.

While I agree that Germany could have crushed the BEF at Dunkerque it was Hitlers stupidity that allowed them to escape...

A simple fact that even the ground commanders on the front would agree with.

That you, Hop, have issues accepting and recognizing Germany did offer peace to England has absolutely no effect on the facts.

That you look at Hitlers real intentions in a very skewed matter and a naive way has absolutely no effect on the facts.

This is one of the most repulsive issues of the war: at least in the west the war could have lasted...less than a year.

Under what circumstances? If there had been peace in the west it would have been under:

1. An occupied France.
2. Germany enslaved by Hitler
3. More "Untermenschen" being killed
4. Later war with England

Why are you blind to the matter Udet? You make it seem as if Churchill was the big bad evil man for not accepting peace with Hitler. Would you have done so under such circumstances?

Churchill did the right thing standing up to Hitler. Why make Hitler out to be anything more than what he was, Udet?

Politicians and their fateful decisions...Churchill was stupid. Germany posed no threat whatsoever against the interests of the British Empire, at least not in the short term, at all. Had Germany attained peace in the west, then they switch their firepower against the east, the main goal...had they won there, England would have had to deal with an even more super powerful Germany, just like they had to with the "ally" USSR during the Cold War.

Read above Udet....

I am sorry but your views are very very skewed in a certain direction...

What happened with the Soviet Union during the Cold War? This business partner of the Brits and USAers plundered, deported and murdered way beyond Hitler´s wildest fantasies and estimations...the fact the Soviet Union, with its size, resources and geopolitical influence failed to attain anything like "submerging the world in opression and terror" should further illustrate German could have never come close to "opress the world" had it won the war...that is an argument many people say don´t they...that they fought Germany to secure liberty, democracy and human life right?

I will not even begin to respond to what you have said above. Your words speak for themselves.

Rather the REAL threat against the British Empire was gestating elsewhere, more specifically some 12,000 kilometers away from the British Islands, in TOKYO. Ever heard of the fall of Singapore in 1942? The devastating effects of such defeat were still being felt within the ranks of the British military well after the end of WW2.

Had Good Guy Churchill accepted German terms following the fall of France, then there is no U-boat campaign in the Atlantic...no frenzied calls to deploy almost the entire Home Fleet to pursue the Bismarck...oh crap! the dimensions of this pressure-relief event are hard to assess...one thing for sure though: the Royal Navy can now send a significant naval force to secure the Far East possessions, and not only the two ill-fated HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse, which were sent to the bottom as fast and easy as a little child sinks his toy ships in a bucket of water in the backyard.

And still have an Evil mad man with intentions of owning all of Europe in slavory in the name of the German Reich right at your backdoor as little as 50 to 100km from your shoreline.

Yeah that sounds real nice Udet...

Whatever the approach, Churchill fails the test;

You fail to realize one thing Udet. Churchill was on the winning side. He did not fail...

What of Japan´s reaction had Churchill accepted German terms for peace thus putting an end to the war in Europe? Would they still proceed to attack Pearl Harbor?

Again Udet. Your views are skewed. What kind of peace in Europe would it have been. England could not stand there and let Germany do what it was doing.

Hitler was the starter of the war. He was the one that was conquering other countries and illegally occupying them. Churchill was not doing this. I think it is very very stupid to try and put Hitler on a higher level than Churchill. I really wonder about you sometimes Udet...

Churchill´s stupidity and mediocrity made a significant contribution to what would eventually become the dissolution of the British Empire in decades to come.

And Hitlers Destroyed Germany...

 

[Kurfürst]

Not wanting to take sides in this wonderful discussion, however some factual errors need to be corrected.

Those are the facts. There was a brief pause in the offensive towards Dunkirk for purely military reasons, ordered first by the army, confirmed by Hitler. At the same time, the weight of the Luftwaffe was deployed against Dunkirk.

Don't blame political reasons for the failure of the Luftwaffe to carry out one of Goering's boasts, they proved quite capable of that in the BoB, at Stalingrad, over Germany, etc.

The Germans, of course, were right in their decision to leave the small, and relatively small British Exp. Forces to the LW. For the Germans, the goal was to neutralize the BEF and ensure it could no longer interfere with the rest of the French campaign. France, the traditional continental power next to Germany, was the only one capable of posing a threat to the Germans; Britain was not. And this goal could be either achieved if :

a, the BEF flee back to Britiain with all their equipment left in Britain, at minimum loss with the LW taking it`s toll on them, or
b, by engaging the Brits and destroying them on a poor terrain in a costly Kasselschlacht, which may endanger the follow-up operations against the French.

Since the main opposition was from the French, and the French army was still very much intact and numerous even after the catastrophe in the North - the outcome was not yet certain. Risking the iron fist of the Wehrmacht, the Panzers on poor terrain seemed as foolish back then as it is now.

As for the Luftwaffe, it did sent iirc some 10 000 troops, 250 ships and 50 warships (10 destroyers amongst them) to Davy Jones` locker attempting to flee, as well as giving a giving a bloody nose to the RAF at the same time.

'Where is the RAF' was the common saying amongst Tommies, hiding in foxholes on the beaches. Failure of the Luftwaffe over Dunkeque, I don`t think so. The LW basically fullfilled it`s mission goal, it gave a beating to the retreating Brits and hurt them considerably. The RAF was supposed to prevent this - it did not.

I can`t blame Goering for giving promises either, it was a rather realistic exception that the LW would gradually wear down the British who were cornered with the sea at their back; certainly he did not expect this happened in a few days that was actually available, to round up 2-300 000 men. Nobody expected such a quick evacuation by sea, not even the British.

Details of Dunkerque can be debated, but the outcome is rather obvious. The BEF (and Britain for the remainder of the Battle) was neutralised; Germans conserved their forces for the final thrust against the French that knocked France out of the war; the RAF was defeated over Dunkerque both in tactical and strategic sense; RN and MN had considerable permanent and temporarily losses in warships.

Repulsive? That the British continued fighting against the Nazis?

Let's be honest. Hitler wanted Britain to surrender so that he could invade Russia, murder millions of its people, and take the land and resources for the Aryan race.

I don't find the idea of stopping that repulsive.

Let`s be honest. Britain was fighting Germany because it was concerned that with a rising German power on the continent, Britain may no longer be in a position to keep the huge mass of land it invaded, murdered millions of its people, and the land it took and secured it`s resources for the British race.

Exactly the same reasons for the British fighting WW1.

Moral considerations, pity for the USSR that Churchill so eagerly wanted to destroy not so long ago played no part. It`s one funny idea that the largest colonial Empire on the world had moral issues with oppression and genocide. Their issues were very much political.

In the long term allowing a genocidal German regime to absorb most of Europe presented a major risk to Britain. Which is why they went to war over Poland in the first place.

... if that was truely the reasoning, I find it odd that Britiain did not go to war with the USSR that invaded Poland - which itself was a military dictatorship at the time, with harsh policies towards it`s ethnic minorities and running it`s own concentration camps for ethnic and political prisoners - the same year, or in 1945 when they occupied Poland and put a puppet goverment in it`s place.

Truth is, they were only concerned that a rising genocidal German regime would be a too tough competition to the genocidal British regime in colonizing and oppressing third world countries.

Outdated their thinking may seen, it should not be forgotten that British leaders came from a social background that was openly racist, and made it`s living from their investments and properties of the colonised countries of Asia and Africa. This kinda explains why they got on so well with the Nazis in the 1930, they shared certain similiar ideologies and hatred.

The difference was the Communists showed they were sane, the Nazis showed they were not.

The Communists, for all their bluster, never once launched a war against a major power. The Nazis, in a few short years, attacked almost all the major powers.

Uhm, I think you need a major history lesson I think. It certainly won`t make the Nazis look any better, but at least it will correct some petty revisionism.

Britain declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, and then refused all offers of peace.

France declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, and refused all offers of peace in 1940, which meant they choose that the conclusion was left to the military, which in the end did not favour France and forced it to surrender.

USSR, first broke the agreement it made earlier with the Germans in July 1940, then declared in November 1940 that it will move against - despite former agreements defining 'interest zones' - and occupy against Finnland, Rumania, Bulgaria and Turkey etc., despite all of these were strategically vital for the Germans because of their resources (Finnland sent nickel, Turkey chrome, Rumania oil iirc).

USA, not much to say, it supported Germany`s enemies with arms, and then openly waged war on the seas against Germany from the spring of 1941 onwards.

Hitler started the war on Poland with very limited goals on his mind - namely, knocking out Poland which was hostile to Germany (and the USSR, too) even before Hitler came to power and which even tried to forge a military allience with France to overrun the Germans. Poland after WW1 misunderstood it`s possibilities and under the military dictatorship that run the country and oppressed both ethnic German and Ukrainian minorities, it seeked to achieve some sort of 'Great Power' status in the region.

Hitler seeked to remove this threat, but he mis-calculated the reaction of the West. After 1st September 1939, Hitler was no longer in control of the events, he kept reacting to the events as they unfolded, and raced with the clock - for some time, successfully, as he was undoubtfully very successfull and kept winning.

As for Communist being better than Nazis, you, unlike some here, have no experience with either.

Whilst their were many deaths and displaced in Europe in the immediate aftermath of the war (and how could ethnic Germans remain in Poland after the way Poles had been treated by Germans?),

I was a bit shocked when I've read this. Mass deportation is OK. Then I wonder, what problems could you have with the Nazis at all...? You seem to adore the same ideology as they did, ie. collective guilt, extreme punishment, and pretending it`s all normal.

from 1948 to 1989 Communist rule in Europe was oppressive but nothing like genocidal. The number of people killed by the regimes was in the thousands, rather than millions killed by the Nazis in a much shorter time period.

This latter statement of yours puts you in the same bag as David Irving and other notorious Holocaust deniers IMHO. Only that you`re an apologist for communism, and a denier of the 100 million victims Communism demanded in the last 80 years.

Holodomor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation: Honor the Victims of Communism and Those Who Love Liberty
Pol Pot - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The difference is the Communists never, ever, tried an all out attack against a world power.

This may have something to do with Nukes, rather than the benevolent and peaceful nature of communism.

 

[Kurfürst]

The Germans, if Britain had made peace with them, would at least have controlled all of continental Europe, leaving only a depleted Britain and the US to oppose them.

... it`s difficult question wheter the fact Britain remained in war after 1940 changed anything at all. It could not challange Germany much on the continent, neither it diverted too many German resources from the Eastern Front. Most likely, the Eastern Front would follow the same path with Britain 'out'.

WW2 ended with Britain, France, most of Germany and the US opposing the Soviets. That's a much better balance.

Certainly from the POV of those who ended up on the Western side of the Iron Curtain..

Right. Adolf "I have no further territorial demands in Europe" Hitler signs a peace deal at Munich in 1938. In 1939 he invades Czechoslovakia. Then Poland. Then Denmark and Norway. Then France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Then he signs another peace deal.

And the British will trust him so much they send all their forces to the far east?

I can`t comment on British strategical moves, but to me it`s seem that the 'British desire' to stay in the war was as much as rooted in the fact that Britain at the time was lead by Churchill, who spent his life as a war-mongerer and trying to prove (though with rather opposite results) his qualities as a 'warlord'. He liked to pose in uniforms of services he never served with. In short, he was taking the opportunity to fullfill his personal ambitions.His personal desire or a war that he could lead, combined with his racists beliefs was an important part of why Britain remained at war.

Now as for the factual errors. Czechoslovakia was not invaded, only the Czech parts - historically speaking, traditional part of the Reich BTW, and regardless of our modern views on this, the date back then was 1939! with 20 years of a mixed state where Czechs were ruling over ethic minorities, predominantly Germans and Slovakians, after some 900 years being spent on the blossom of the Reich. The point I am making that while today we take self-governing of a nation as granted, the 1920s and 1930s were a rather different enviroment, the final chapter of imperialism, if you like. The Slovaks were OTOH very happy about having their own, independent country in which they no longer governed and overshadowed by Prague.

Poland was already discussed. Given the way Polish internal and external polics went in 1920s and 1930s, challenging both Russia and Germany.. and fooling themselves about their own capabilities (the Polish military fully believed in 1939 that they will soon marchin g in Berlin, and that the great moment has come..), it they writing their own fate, basically. Much have been written how the Poles were treated by the Germans and subsequently, the Russians. Much less about how the Poles treated Germans and Russians/Ukrainians in the two decades before WW2. Suffice to say, Poland was running concentration camps for ethnic minorities.

Denmark and Norway are odd examples, since the whole occupation of the Norway was a German reaction to Franco-British plans put forward by Churchill in September 1939 to the War Cabinet to occupy Norway and deny the Germans of Swedish ore transports, and which were initiated the same time the Germans set in motion their own counter-plan.
Decision To Invade Norway and Denmark

I find it odd. The British seeked to overrun and occupy a neutral country, they failed and now they blame it on the ones who thwarted their plans..

As for France, it`s again odd since France declared war on Germany.. and a result was beaten in battle and occupied. If you declalre war on a country and then it defeats you, you can`t blame anyone else but yourself I guess.

Oh what a strange upside-down world you live in. The Germans the good guys, Churchill the bad guy. Churchill the fool who got it all wrong.

Any POV that thinks in 'good guys' vs. 'bad guys' is oversimplified, thus fundanmentally flawed and thus wrong - though I tend to agree with Churchill being a fool who got it all wrong. Britain could certainly do with someone smarter, and with more sense of reality than this pompous fool.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Sorry Kurfurst but I just find it hard to justify what the Nazis did and were planning to do. To basically say they were forced into war is wrong. True the treaty that ended WW1 pretty much secured what would cause WW2 and I believe that WW2 really was just a continuation of hostilities after a lengthy pause.

It just seems to me that some people are trying to put the Germans onto the side that could do no wrong and it was the allies that got it all wrong. Saying that Churchill should have made Peace with Germany is all wrong in my opinion.

The Nazis were an evil dictator led power that wanted to rule everyone under there thumb. That could not be allowed.

There is no way to church it up...

 

[Kurfürst]

I am not aiming to justify anything they did, I think I tried to express this clearly when I wrote : 'It certainly won`t make the Nazis look any better...'

What I was writing about is that the strategic initiative for them was pretty much gone after Britain and France declared war on Germany. Could they resort to other means than war in 1939? Probably, it was inbranded to the nazi leaders to seek war a tool. Was the responsibility solely theirs? No. And after Poland, they were reacting to moves made by Allies - in a very agressive manner, as per Prussian military traditions, rooted in the poor geostrategic position the country has, it`s the only correct answer if the country is threatened. Same as in WW1, one can point to finger in one direction, but it`s a silly nonsense. It takes two to dance.

My point being that history is seldom black and white, and there`s hardly much moral justification of politics, ever. The only rule that motivates politics is interest.

IMHO the studying of history is important because it helps us to understand the effect of cause and effect. Black and White stories are never true, and if one wants to properly understand the causes of WW2, one better searches for the reason on both sides. And one better search deep - the spark that set the powder keg alight o 1st September 1939 did not appear from no-where. It has it`s roots in Versailles, Nazi Rallies, communist rallies, colonisation, the frustration and rising, boundless nationalism in Eastern Europe after the downfall of the Habsburg Empire, leaving a huge political vacuum after itself. The causes are many. I don`t buy the victim and victimizer dualism, either.

 

[Marcel]

Yes, the Germans started the war, but they also tried to put an end to all military actions in the west as early as in 1940, right after France surrendered and -yes- the BEF was allowed to escape from Dunkerque.

This the leanest exampe of the allied state of denial...Dunkerque will now be portrayed as a German "inability" or "failure" to either crush or capture the BEF. I leave this matter to psychiatry.

That you, Hop, have issues accepting and recognizing Germany did offer peace to England has absolutely no effect on the facts.

This is one of the most repulsive issues of the war: at least in the west the war could have lasted...less than a year.

Politicians and their fateful decisions...Churchill was stupid. Germany posed no threat whatsoever against the interests of the British Empire, at least not in the short term, at all. Had Germany attained peace in the west, then they switch their firepower against the east, the main goal...had they won there, England would have had to deal with an even more super powerful Germany, just like they had to with the "ally" USSR during the Cold War.

What happened with the Soviet Union during the Cold War? This business partner of the Brits and USAers plundered, deported and murdered way beyond Hitler´s wildest fantasies and estimations...the fact the Soviet Union, with its size, resources and geopolitical influence failed to attain anything like "submerging the world in opression and terror" should further illustrate German could have never come close to "opress the world" had it won the war...that is an argument many people say don´t they...that they fought Germany to secure liberty, democracy and human life right?

You are all saying that if Great Britain had accepted the German offer, Hitler would eventually reverse the deal; i can neither affirm nor deny this. We are talking about politicians; politicians have agendas. But in the short term the bulk of the German firepower would have been deployed and stationed in the east, with no resources enough to put Great Britain at "risk", could Hitler indeed believe the time to betray England had come.



Rather the REAL threat against the British Empire was gestating elsewhere, more specifically some 12,000 kilometers away from the British Islands, in TOKYO. Ever heard of the fall of Singapore in 1942? The devastating effects of such defeat were still being felt within the ranks of the British military well after the end of WW2.

Had Good Guy Churchill accepted German terms following the fall of France, then there is no U-boat campaign in the Atlantic...no frenzied calls to deploy almost the entire Home Fleet to pursue the Bismarck...oh crap! the dimensions of this pressure-relief event are hard to assess...one thing for sure though: the Royal Navy can now send a significant naval force to secure the Far East possessions, and not only the two ill-fated HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse, which were sent to the bottom as fast and easy as a little child sinks his toy ships in a bucket of water in the backyard.

Even if waging war both in Europe and the Far East was beyond the means of the British Empire by the time, Churchill could have accepted Hitler´s terms for peace, and proceed to properly secure British colonies and military forces in the Far East to at least deter Japanese intentions on British possessions in the region.

Whatever the approach, Churchill fails the test; we have a rejected pupil; his obssession lied in the wrong place; where the real threat was he either did not know -which seems quite unlikely in view of the alleged "superb" British intelligence services which, as they put it, cracke and read absolutely everything coming from the German codes-, or if he did know his actions were wrong, failing to secure the interests of the Empire.

What of Japan´s reaction had Churchill accepted German terms for peace thus putting an end to the war in Europe? Would they still proceed to attack Pearl Harbor?

Churchill´s stupidity and mediocrity made a significant contribution to what would eventually become the dissolution of the British Empire in decades to come.

As it happens almost everywhere on earth, those national figures praised and adored, the heroes, the Ultimate Statesman, do not really deserve all that limelight and credit.

A same thing applies in the case of Hitler, right after the overwhelmingly crushing victories attained by the Wehrmacht during the first months of Barbarossa in the soviet union, the Führer should have then resorted to politics and dictate some terms to finish the war in that region, even if the outlined goals for the military operation had not yet been attained; the frightened political spheres in Moscow would have gladly accepted any terms to put an end to war in the east.

Hitler too was stupid there.

So if we consider these facts, it is not daring to affirm the war in Europe could have been terminated, say, in early 1942. The war could have lasted half its actual duration.

Politicians and their fateful decision which costed the lives of millions of soldiers and civilians.

Living in a country that still could've been occupied by Nazi's then, I find this point of view rather clinical and ignorant. Although maybe not immediately intended, Churcill's "stupidity" saved me and milions of other Europeans to be still repressed by one of the most evil regimes in the world. You should read a little more about live in occupied countries during WWII before claiming it would have saved milions of lives if the UK and Nazi germany would have made great friends early!

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Living in a country that still could've been occupied by Nazi's then, I find this point of view rather clinical and ignorant. Although maybe not immediately intended, Churcill's "stupidity" saved me and milions of other Europeans to be still repressed by one of the most evil regimes in the world. You should read a little more about live in occupied countries during WWII before claiming it would have saved milions of lives if the UK and Nazi germany would have made great friends early!

I think that is the point that is lost here.

 

[bigZ]

" This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note stating that, unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.

You can imagine what a bitter blow it is to me that all my long struggle to win peace has failed. Yet I cannot believe that there is anything more, or anything different, that I could have done, and that would have been more successful... We have a clear conscience, we have done all that any country could do to establish peace, but a situation in which no word given by Germany's ruler could be trusted, and no people or country could feel themselves safe, had become intolerable... Now may God bless you all and may He defend the right. For it is evil things that we shall be fighting against, brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression, and persecution. And against them I am certain that the right will prevail."

The shame of the Munich Agreement and the broken promises would ensure that the British would never again trust Hitler.