Well it might not be ludicrous.
If perhaps the Nazis didn't already have programs of extermination for the preservation of racial purity of the master race already up and running for several years, or if perhaps a week before the invasion of Poland Hitler hadn't said that the merciless extermination of men women and children was neccesary for his plan for more space to be put into practice.

Pat Buchanan is just upset that the Nazis killed tens of thousands of homosexuals and communists before he got a chance to.

(Runs and hides.)

IIRC, Hitler really did not want war with Britain, if anything he respected the British Empire and did not want war with them, but of course, he wanted the Danzig corridor more :dead:

I've heard of Pat before, but never read anything by him until now, and alas, he's obviously still under the belief that the Polish attacked Gleiwitz...

Hitler did want the war to end in 1940, he wanted to secure his flanks now that he had his bridgehead to strike the Soviet Union, he wanted to make sure that Britain would leave him alone, and as Britain so the US. He viewed the Bolsheviks as uncultured barbarians and it was inevitable that some point down the line Stalin and Hitler would go to war.

He did his best to break Britain, but his real goal was Russia.

So, Pat is partially right but for all the wrong reasons, and it's a damn good thing that we didn't stop fighting in 1940, who knows how things would have turned out? A successful Barbarossa perhaps? Then of course, after Barbarossa would come a possible campaign against the United States and the UK from a strengthened German perspective.

Alternate history is interesting :yep:

Oberon, you bring up an interesting historical footnote. Hitler's initial political successes were funded by Jewish interests - as a counter to what was seen as the threat of the Bolsheviks. When Stalin took power instead of Trotsky, the Russians became a major concern for many. It is unlikely that Hitler cared enough to find out where the money was coming from, so its doubtful he knew.

Another irony of history that a group of people would quietly throw hefty support to a person, who once established, became their greatest terror.

Learn history, or be doomed to repeat it.

To say hitler did not want war with france and Britain when he invaded Poland, is a bit like saying Saddam did not want war when he invaded Kuwait.

hitler wanted Poland being destroyed, to add one half of it to the German Lebensraum, and later adding the Soviets prey from Poland to German territory, too. He also wanted to destroy Poland and Polish people as a cultural and national entity, to have the Polish-Slavic subhumans available as a pool of always available slave-wokers for the German industrial demand. It was no war of strategic conquest. It was a systematic effort of annihilating a country and a people. No shoot-to-defeat-and-win. It was shoot-to-kill, and then nothing.

Yesterday there was a 1 hour docu on TV by second German TV program, showing some of the latest findings of historic analysis. There has been orders of Hitler to the Wehrmacht where he explained to his generals that the attack on Poland was not about just conquering and occupying Poland, or to win back Danzig, but that it was about nothing else but to destroy and annihilate Poland as a functioning state and ethnic group once and for all. Poland should seized to exist, forever, and it seems Hitler left no doubt on that intention, which means the Wehrmacht leadership knew what they were expected to achieve - and what they were expected to assist in. This was the primary goal from the very beginning, and explains why the assassination of intellectuals, artists, doctors, people of higher education, was driven forward with so much systemtic effort. It was about to kill the social elites needed to leave Poles in the hope they could ever have an independant future again.

Hitler delayed the preplanned attack on Poland once when learning about the changed attittude of Britain towards Germany and the treaty, and thought twice, but came to the conclusion that neither Britain nor France would seriously act against Germany. Later, he very obviously accepted the chance that there would be war with both when he nevertheless gave order to blitz Poland. His calculation was correct, both Western nations who had promised assitance and military help to Poland in case of a German attack and promised to open a front in the West, did nothing substantial, only the Frnech took a small town in the Rheinland area, which had been forseen by the wehrmacht - and tbhus had been evacuated, giving the French a "victory" for which they did not fight. Nevertheless their declaration of war remained to stay in the air, and Hitler knew that when Poland was struck. That he attacked nevertheless only means that he was ready to accept war with both nations, and the German blitz against France can be taken as a hint that when the delayed attack on Poland finally nevertheless was ordered, the war against the Western powers already was willed and taken as granted - to eliminate the risk that the British and French war declaration nevertheless left in the air: to start a war at Germany indeed, but at the time of their choosing. Hitler did not plan to give them the time to prepare that they needed.

No matter how you see it, there can be little doubt that when the order to attack Poland was given, Hitler already had decided to strike France as well since both countries had a shared border on land, and France was in reach of the precious industrial centres of germany, and that he was willing to accept war with Britain as well. As long as there was France, the third Reich's industrial heart and core, the Ruhrgebiet, was vulnerable. So France had to go.

I am sure that all this was also planned and intended as only the introduction to the ultimate goal of Hitler's ambitions: Russia, which was both the promise of fat prey, and a threat to Hitler's ambitions to dominate.

Seen that way, Poland's and France's only faults were that they had the bad luck to simply be in the third Reich's way, Poland physically, and France strategically. Same is true for Holland and Belgium, of course. Not before the attack on Britain failed by loosing the air war, the strategic need emerged to arrange oneself with the changed strategic needs of an ongoing war in the West, which led to the growing German ambition to conquer the rest of Europe as well and by that having better (=controlled) supply lines and infrastructure, making Scandinavia unavailable for the Western allies as military basis for their navies and air forces, and to gain a stronger position for the to be expected forever defence against military action of Britain, and eventually America.

One can wonder what would have happened if Hitler would have defeated Britain. It would have shifted a lot of strategic, economic and logistic balances in favour of the third Reich. I always considered the air battle for Britain the key event in the history of the war in europe, despite the fact that it was taking place relatively early in the war. There were bigger battles in size, in russia, yes. But I think that Britain did not fall was the one single and deciding event in the war in Europe. What american action remained in the Atlantic (for what purpose different than defending the American coast?) the German U-boats probbaly would have taken care of in uch the same way the American boats strangeled Japan. The German submarines almost achieved to strangle all Britain even under much more negative conditions. With Britain taken out of the formula, I wonder if America would have even dared to declare war on Germany - "yes" is not a certain answer here. I am absolutely not sure that the industrial capacities of the US then would have been enough to influence the German domination of Europe. Lend-and-lease deliveries to Russia would have had much lower volumes. The Russians in the end probably would have broken, I think, since it was only the industrial assistance of Britain and America that kept them in the game. Their armies skills' simply were inferior to the strategy and mobility of the Germans. even their wins later in the war they bought with much higher losses in liofe and material, and the Wehrmacht was the best-led and best-commanded army in the whole war. The Russians compensated that with higher material investements. And these were only possible due to lend-and-lease - and it still was a close call before the industrial numbers finally turned against the germans. Last but not least balance changed also due to Hitler's sometimes insane demands.

Germany having beaten Britain: and it would be a very different world we live in today, I have no doubt.

And a much worse one.

Skybird, interesting points.

The question probably should be restated - not "Did Hitler want a war?", but "Did Hitler want a WORLD WAR AT THE TIME?". The answer to that we can never know for certain because the crazy bugger is dead, but history indicates that he intended war in pieces, he simply got a much bigger piece than Germany could handle.

In questioning whether GB falling would have really mattered to the outcome, I agree that the BoB was indeed one of two fulcrum moments in Europe. The second - though happening in the Pacific, was Pearl Harbor. The first was a stop to the German advance, and the busting of the "unbeatable" image. The second - for europe, was a godsend since it brought the full military might of the US to bear. Lend -Lease was a trickle, but the US entry into the war opened that to a flood. Without that event, GB would never have been able to push the Germans from Western Europe.

The pacific war of course had its other moments, namely Midway and the Marianas, that stopped the Japanese momentum, and then broke their naval might, respectively.

the onyl question is: "did Hitler will war beyond Poland, when he attacked Poland?"

And the answer is yes. He accepted British and France entering war, although he may have hoped that Britain would accept to share power with Germany. Buit again: after the intially delayed attack against Poland, Hitler had accepted to fight Britain and France, if they would not stay put. And he eyed the war with Russia from the very beginning, even before Poland. Poland was just a preparatory step.

I think these things could have been seen by people in that time back then, too. The German ambition towards the East was obvious despite the Nazi's attenpot to camouflage them.

And this is the reason why the mission and intention and trust by Chamberlain was so very hilarious, ridiculous, naive and disconnected from reality. He should and must have known that freedom of the Western nations with Germany could only be maintained by accepting Germany's war in the East. If I wouldn't think that one could have known that even considering that past timeframe, even while living in the year 1939, I would have no reason to laugh about Chamberlain, right? But I do, we all do, since years whenever we discussed him, right?

I agree, many Germans fell for the Nazi propaganda, but not all, I think not even a majority. Most germans at that time where no active, convinced Nazis, but "Mitläufer", fearing for their families or their own well-being and thus accepting evil for reasons of being intimidated. But that national propaganda did not reach and influence other nations for such huge effect. Chamberlain and the political leaders in the West should have know it better, really. even more when considering that harassing the Jews already was valid policy in Germany when he met Hitler in Munich. That should have given him a hint of how reasonable, sensible and peace-loving the monster was that he sat down with.

Two points I'd like to add here.
Some argue that it had been Hitler's intention from the start to use the Czechoslovakian question as a pretext for beginning 'his' war, so it would have been intended to start it as early as 1938. Only due to Mussolini's mediation had Hitler been persuaded to abstain from a military solution. Needless to say that if Germany was insufficiently prepared to go to war in 1939, that applied even more so to 1938.
As for the appeasement policy of Chamberlain and the others: I agree to a great deal with the general assessment of it, viz. that it turned out to be outrageously naive at best. But think of this: World War I was caused precisely due to a reluctance of all the European great powers to resolve a crisis by diplomatic means. They all felt like sitting on a powder keg and had been almost relieved when it finally ignited.
I think that the Munich Agreement of 1938 could be seen attempt to avoid yet another Juli Crisis.
Needless to say, they all underestimated the monstrosity of the German invasion schemes (which, ironically, had already been laid out clearly in Hitlers 'Mein Kampf', though nobody bothered to take it seriously). Still, worth to think about it in my opinion.

Did Hitler want a world war, no. but he was prepared to take his country and the rest of Europe into war because of his undeniable desire for "Lebensraum" or Living space for his ideal of the German people.

I'm afraid Pat's point is kind of missing some very pertinent facts if indeed he is making any kind of point at all.

look of the logistics of the war, its pretty clear that Germany could not have taken over the world even if they really wanted to. This article makes perfect sense. War is ALL about logistics. Amateurs study tactics, experts study logistics.

The article contains too many factual errors and such rambling disconnected logic that it makes very little sense at all.

So could you tell everyone what your expert findings are concerning the logistics of pre-war and wartime Germany/Axis/co-belligerants etc.?

Concerning logistics: Two days ago, I came across this Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%...9)#Total_Trade

Thus in 1941, the raw materials came back to Russia, albeit in a different form.

Tribeman - in the interest of a rational discussion based on history, what "factual errors" does the article have? I can agree with flawed logic based on MISSING facts, but I see no "factual errors". There are a number of flawed conclusions, but when you don't account for all the facts, that happens.

To discuss this, instead of just saying "The article contains too many factual errors and such rambling disconnected logic that it makes very little sense at all.", point out the inconsistencies and erros you see, so they can be discussed.

I remember being taught about that during A levels and just imagining the Soviet factory leader coming out to the leading Panzer and asking "What was wrong with it? We don't do refunds!"

Anyway...it's the 3rd of September today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtrOJnpmz6s

Quote:

I am speaking to you from the Cabinet Room at 10, Downing Street. 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. Up to the very last it would have been quite possible to have arranged a peaceful and honourable settlement between Germany and Poland. But Hitler would not have it. He had evidently made up his mind to attack Poland whatever happened; and although he now says he put forward reasonable proposals which were rejected by the Poles, that is not a true statement. The proposals were never shown to the Poles nor to us; and though they were announced in the German broadcast on Thursday night, Hitler did not wait to hear comments on them, but ordered his troops to cross the Polish frontier next morning. His action shows convincingly that there is no chance of expecting that this man will ever give up his practice of using force to gain his will. He can only be stopped by force and we and France are to-day, in fulfilment of our obligations, going to the aid of Poland, who is so bravely resisting this wicked and unprovoked attack upon her people. 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. And now that we have resolved to finish it, I know that you will all play your part with calmness and courage. At such a moment as this the assurances of support that we have received from the Empire are a source of profound encouragement to us. When I have finished speaking certain detailed announcements will be made on behalf of the Government. Give them your close attention. The Government have made plans under which it will be possible to carry on the work of the nation in the days of stress and strain that may be ahead. But these plans need your help. You may be taking part in the Fighting Services or as a Volunteer in one of the branches of Civil Defence. If so, you will report for duty in accordance with the instructions you receive. You may be engaged in work essential to the prosecution of war or to the maintenance of life of the people-in factories, in transport, in public utility concerns or in the supply of other necessaries of life. If so, it is of vital importance that you should carry on with your jobs. 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.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erMO3...eature=related