by Patrick J. Buchanan
On Sept. 1, 1939, 70 years ago, the German Army crossed the Polish frontier. On Sept. 3, Britain declared war.
Six years later, 50 million Christians and Jews had perished. Britain was broken and bankrupt, Germany a smoldering ruin. Europe had served as the site of the most murderous combat known to man, and civilians had suffered worse horrors than the soldiers.
By May 1945, Red Army hordes occupied all the great capitals of Central Europe: Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Berlin. A hundred million Christians were under the heel of the most barbarous tyranny in history: the Bolshevik regime of the greatest terrorist of them all, Joseph Stalin.
What cause could justify such sacrifices?
The German-Polish war had come out of a quarrel over a town the size of Ocean City, Md., in summer. Danzig, 95 percent German, had been severed from Germany at Versailles in violation of Woodrow Wilson’s principle of self-determination. Even British leaders thought Danzig should be returned.
Why did Warsaw not negotiate with Berlin, which was hinting at an offer of compensatory territory in Slovakia? Because the Poles had a war guarantee from Britain that, should Germany attack, Britain and her empire would come to Poland’s rescue.
But why would Britain hand an unsolicited war guarantee to a junta of Polish colonels, giving them the power to drag Britain into a second war with the most powerful nation in Europe?
Was Danzig worth a war? Unlike the 7 million Hong Kongese whom the British surrendered to Beijing, who didn’t want to go, the Danzigers were clamoring to return to Germany.
Comes the response: The war guarantee was not about Danzig, or even about Poland. It was about the moral and strategic imperative “to stop Hitler” after he showed, by tearing up the Munich pact and Czechoslovakia with it, that he was out to conquer the world. And this Nazi beast could not be allowed to do that.
If true, a fair point. Americans, after all, were prepared to use atom bombs to keep the Red Army from the Channel. But where is the evidence that Adolf Hitler, whose victims as of March 1939 were a fraction of Gen. Pinochet’s, or Fidel Castro’s, was out to conquer the world?
After Munich in 1938, Czechoslovakia did indeed crumble and come apart. Yet consider what became of its parts.
The Sudeten Germans were returned to German rule, as they wished. Poland had annexed the tiny disputed region of Teschen, where thousands of Poles lived. Hungary’s ancestral lands in the south of Slovakia had been returned to her. The Slovaks had their full independence guaranteed by Germany. As for the Czechs, they came to Berlin for the same deal as the Slovaks, but Hitler insisted they accept a protectorate.
Now one may despise what was done, but how did this partition of Czechoslovakia manifest a Hitlerian drive for world conquest?
Comes the reply: If Britain had not given the war guarantee and gone to war, after Czechoslovakia would have come Poland’s turn, then Russia’s, then France’s, then Britain’s, then the United States.
We would all be speaking German now.
But if Hitler was out to conquer the world — Britain, Africa, the Middle East, the United States, Canada, South America, India, Asia, Australia — why did he spend three years building that hugely expensive Siegfried Line to protect Germany from France? Why did he start the war with no surface fleet, no troop transports and only 29 oceangoing submarines? How do you conquer the world with a navy that can’t get out of the Baltic Sea?
If Hitler wanted the world, why did he not build strategic bombers, instead of two-engine Dorniers and Heinkels that could not even reach Britain from Germany?
Why did he let the British army go at Dunkirk?
Why did he offer the British peace, twice, after Poland fell, and again after France fell?
Why, when Paris fell, did Hitler not demand the French fleet, as the Allies demanded and got the Kaiser’s fleet? Why did he not demand bases in French-controlled Syria to attack Suez? Why did he beg Benito Mussolini not to attack Greece?
Because Hitler wanted to end the war in 1940, almost two years before the trains began to roll to the camps.
Hitler had never wanted war with Poland, but an alliance with Poland such as he had with Francisco Franco’s Spain, Mussolini’s Italy, Miklos Horthy’s Hungary and Father Jozef Tiso’s Slovakia.
Indeed, why would he want war when, by 1939, he was surrounded by allied, friendly or neutral neighbors, save France. And he had written off Alsace, because reconquering Alsace meant war with France, and that meant war with Britain, whose empire he admired and whom he had always sought as an ally.
As of March 1939, Hitler did not even have a border with Russia. How then could he invade Russia?
Winston Churchill was right when he called it “The Unnecessary War” — the war that may yet prove the mortal blow to our civilization.
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There is a rumor going around that the western governments are discussing what to do about the historians Patrick Buchanan, David Irving and Jorg Friedrich. Mr. Irving was put in jail for one year in 2006, but the big Spanish newspaper El Mundo just published a full length interview with him. The Israeli Foreign minister spoke to Chancellor Merkel, Prime Minister Brown and President Obama and its reported he told them “I expect this problem will be dealt with promptly”.
Thank you for speaking the truth about World War 2.
What kind of Fascist is this?
He's dangerous not only because of lying and screwing facts so as to fit his fascist ideology, he sounds pretty educated and trustworthy when doing so and thus those who know nothing about the subject matter might even start believing this.
Germany was, obviously, an absolutely peaceful country before the war, Czechoslovakia wasn't, obviously, sold by France and Britain in Munich and the Czech part of the country desperately wanted Germany to grant it the status of Slovakia although there was no longer any "Czech part" – just a German driven Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. And Poland is obviously to blame for the war the most as it did not surrender just as Czechs and Slovaks had done when left behind by their "allies".
I am so much supportive of freedom of speech that I couldn't be more but there are moments when I have a feeling it might actually not be a bad idea if there were some limits.
The problem with people like this Buchanan is that they are able to sound persuasive although they are full of … you know what.
This is an astonishingly stupid article.
It ignores the fact that Hitler considered Poland an illegitimate state, whose destruction he called for, and for which he started planning the war shortly after the breakup of Czechoslovakia. He was frustrated that he had to postpone the attack a few times. It ignores the fact that he even faked the beginning of the war, by laying out corpses in Polish uniforms to pretend that the Poles had attacked first.
More generally, it ignores all the evidence of Hitler's racial ideology, which saw Poles and Russians as inferior subhumans, worthy only of being conquered and enslaved.
Even your evidence about Hitler's armaments is bogus. He did not have adequate bombers or an adequate fleet because he did not have the resources to build them if he wanted to have a big enough army. It was not peaceful intentions but poor planning, self-destructive turf wars among the services, and a poor resource-base. Read Tooze's "The Wages of Destruction", the most authoritative economic history of the Third Reich.
Churchill called it the "Unnecessary War" because he considered it preventable by hitting Hitler harder and earlier, NOT because there was so little to fight about… exactly the opposite of what Mr. Buchanan is suggesting. That is in Churchill's memoirs. But if Mr. Buchanan is fact-challenged on everything else, we shouldn't be surprised if he is here, too.
Some of your assertions are right but some are not.
It is true that Hitler didn't want to make war to the West. However, if your read Mein Kampf, "Bolchevismus" was the ennemy as well as were the jews.
The fact is that Hitler wasn't a genious at all. He was an uneducated narrowminded politician with almost no military skills.
He wasn't prepare to fight a world war, that is for sure.
The Germans were scared of the french army, one of the best in the world "on paper". And they knew they had no fleet to challenge the royal navy. So on those points you're right. In fact it was its biggest mistake, thanks for us Europeans.
He could have invaded all France easy, get access to the Mediterranean sea, get the French fleet, invaded Gibraltar, ask for Morocco and broken the English forces in Africa, get the middle east oil in 1941 and the Suez Canal! AND HE WOULD HAVE WON THE WAR and RULE THE WORLD (with the oil reserves even the Rockefeller would have eaten in his hand!)
THANK GOD, HE DIDN'T, because he wasn't interested in ruling the world, that's a fact.
And you're right about that.
It is also true that the Battle of Britain was mostly political. He wanted to weaken Britain in order to obtain peace with them. That was the problem; Hitler had no plans concerning England. So he first asked his Luftwaffe whose equipment was not fitting with its mission to bomber the ships, then to get rid of the RAF. That is then when Churchill made his bet to bomber Berlin. Hitler was so outraged (and stupid) that he changed the plans once again. Churchill was hoping that Hitler would divert his bomber to attack London and he was right. Civilians were scarified but the RAF was saved.
As far as the rest of your assertions are concerned, you are mostly wrong.
1./ Dunkirk wasn't a gift at all. In fact, Hitler who had not invented the Blitzkrieg (manstein, Guderian, Rommel did). He got scared of the speed of his army in France. France was supposed to have the most powerful army in Europe. They had more soldiers, more guns, and more tanks. Hitler feared a counter-attack. Only the panzers reached Dunkirk which by the way was still defended by 80.000 French soldiers. Hitler ordered the Panzer to wait for its infantry, nothing more.
As far as the rest of your speculations, I am sorry to say that you are mostly wrong.
One could say rightfully that Hitler’s claims on the Sudeten and even on Danzig were justified (Sorry to all the Poles) but it would not have been enough for Hitler in the end.
First, he needed a frontier with Russia to get rid of it.
Second, Poland was a creation of the treaty of Versaille. In Hitler’s it was German soil, part of german’s Lebensraum. It was an abomination full of Slavs. Germany had no colonies in Afrika (they were taken from it in 1918 ) It never was a colonial power as were France and Britain. Hitler never was interrested in Africa, what he wanted was the East! To the Volga and beyond and all its resources. His “oost-politiek” was a success. Wasn’t he allied with Hungary, Bulgary, Romania, Italy, friendly to Turkey and the Arabs ?
But POLAND WAS ON ITS WAY. It had to be crushed. The plans were well prepared and the result of the Battle is the proof.
So the question “Was the war necessary” ?
Well no, if you would have whished to have a racist fascist power free of jews, disabled, mentally ills and full of Slaves working for their Aryian masters ruling from the Rhine to the Pacific.
No if you would have enjoyed the teaching of racist theories in schools and university, as part of the “grandeur” of the western civilisation.
Well, it is up to anyone to answer.
(Sorry, English is not my mother tongue)
Nice premise Pat but your full of methane gas on this one, the fact remains that all of Europe was asleep at the wheel when Hitler decided it was time to act as the principle provocateur of WWII. In comparing Hitler to other despots throughout history I cannot believe for a minute that he was only interested in ruling his little corner of the world.
If Hitler only wanted Danzig(traditionally a German city), he should have only invaded that city and held it. There wouldn't have been much the Poles could have done about it. Instead, he took half of Poland and, worse, gave the other half–along with the Baltic republics–to Stalin. Of course, he wanted war.
Even so, Hitler still had a chance for long term peace up to the summer of 1941. France had been taken out. UK would have opted for a cease-fire sooner or later. Hitler had all of Europe on his side or under his umbrella. Even Stalin the paranoid trusted him. But, he attacked the USSR. That REALLY began the super war of WWII. Germany vs Poland had been a quickie. Germany vs France had been a quickie. Germany vs UK was tougher but not very destructive to either side. Germans had limited air power to take UK and vice versa.
Had Hitler kept the peace with Stalin, WWII would have fizzled out by 1942 or 1943 and would have mainly been a simmering tit-for-tat conflict between Germany and UK, with both sides eventually figuring that cease-fire was the best solution.
But, Hitler escalated the war to new heights by attacking the USSR. Until the invasion of USSR, WWII had been a low-burner affair. After the invasion, it was truly a WORLD war. Also, German invasion of USSR emboldened the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor, which then led Germany to declare war on America as well.
There are aspects of Fascism and National Socialism which I admire–much more so than communism as a whole–, but the 'Aryan' Supremacist aspect of National Socialism was indeed poisonous. National Socialism minus the crazy racial theories would have been, more or less, a sound political system–if not the best–, but the one devised by Hitler and Himmler was toxic.
Another thing. Buchanan often goes on and on about how Americans shouldn't give a damn about affairs outside its own national interest. He says it's not up to us to protect Poland or Georgia or Taiwan or South Korea or Kuwait or whatever. Fair enough. If so, why does Buchanan care so much about what happened with Germany throughout the 20th century? Buchanan is as drawn to Germanness as many Jews are drawn to Israelness. Just as many American Jews formulate their view of American policy via Israel, Buchanan does the same thru the prism of Germany and German history. If Buchanan is indeed an America Firster, he shouldn't give a damn about a what happened in WWII. The fact is US came out of it as Number One. He should be glad Hitler and Churchill messed things up royally, paving the way for Pax America.
"Why did Warsaw not negotiate with Berlin, which was hinting at an offer of compensatory territory in Slovakia? "
How well did negotiating with Berlin work out for the Czechs?
"But why would Britain hand an unsolicited war guarantee to a junta of Polish colonels"
Because Hitler made them look weak, foolish, and amoral in Czechoslovakia. Politically, and diplomatically it was unacceptable to continue knuckling under to German demands when the Germans would not abide by their half of any agreement. Further, Britain was always frightened by the prospect of any power dominating all of Europe. The logical next step for any such power would be to build a fleet to challenge Britain.
"The Slovaks had their full independence guaranteed by Germany."
What kind of "full independence" allows another nation to offer the "independent" nation's territory to a third party without the "independent" nation even having a seat at the table? That sounds much more like a subject state than a fully independent one. Would Buchanan claim that the nations of the Warsaw Pace were fully independent? He makes it sound like the Czechs were volunteering to become part of Germany of their own volition when in fact they were simply going to Berlin to find out how harsh the terms of their conquest would be.
"But if Hitler was out to conquer the world — — why did he spend three years building that hugely expensive Siegfried Line to protect Germany from France."
Because the Great War had familiarized him with the fundamental problems involved in fighting a two front war. Ideally he would fight his targets piece-meal, only starting a new war once his previous opponent had been neutralized. But he could not count on France remaining out of things until he had time to turn his full attention to them.
"Why did he let the British army go at Dunkirk?"
He didn't. There is no historical evidence that Hitler ordered his forces to let them go. In fact he authorized the Luftwaffe to attack there. There is no evidence that the escape at Dunkirk happened for any reason except that the German tanks were running out of gas and needed to stop and wait for their supply chain and infantry support to catch up.
"Why did he offer the British peace, twice, after Poland fell, and again after France fell?"
He didn't have the naval assets to take them on yet.
"Why, when Paris fell, did Hitler not demand the French fleet, as the Allies demanded and got the Kaiser’s fleet? "
Because he had no way to enforce such a demand. There was nothing to stop the French fleet from sailing to Britain if he made it.
"Why did he not demand bases in French-controlled Syria to attack Suez?"
Because Libya was a better base.
"Why did he beg Benito Mussolini not to attack Greece?"
Because a neutral Greece would have meant not having to divert forces from the attack on the Russians in order to support the Italians.
"Hitler had never wanted war with Poland, but an alliance with Poland"
Yes, if he could conquer Poland without fighting it, he would have been happy with that.
"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."
War with Britain did not dissuade him from starting a war with Poland. There is no reason to think that it would have dissuaded him from starting a war with France when he got around to it.
"As of March 1939, Hitler did not even have a border with Russia. How then could he invade Russia?"
Well, and this is just wild speculation…he could invade Russia by taking over or "allying" with Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia first. But hey, how could that ever happen when he was so reluctant to risk war with Britain?
Enter text right here It took a while because most of my WWII books are in storage, and the local libraries have been weeding out the WWII sections over the last five years. However, I finally put together an article that refutes you Pat, point by point, with references, on your "Did Hitler Want War" article. Although I am a liberal, I agree about 10-15% of the time with the problems you point out in our nation, although I disagree on solutions. I had to refute you on this for my dad, my two great uncles, my mother's cousin, and the sixteen million others in that war.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Hysterical-Fanta...
Well freegirard, nice work and nice try.
Your acticle miss some points though;
I wonder if you and most of Pat's critics did realy read his book in the first place. If not, they should.
And what might those be, if I might inquire? I will admit, I have not read Mr. Buchanan's book, only the article: I don't need my blood pressure put into the ionosphere. However, there seems to be a concerted effort on the Right to undermine Churchill in favor of Hitler. I would guess that because they no longerr need Churchill's anti-Communist credentials, they feel it is proper to attack him for his anti-Fascist views.