[moscowexile]

Because Hitler believed that the United Kingdom and the British Empire were the natural allies of Fascist Germany and would eventually join the Fascists in their crusade against the "Mongol-Tatar" (read as: Untermenschen, i.e. subhumans) Bolshevik hordes, which hordes were controlled by Jews, as was international finance capital, all of which was part of a Jewish plot to subjugate non-Jewish people, including the "Aryan" race, and to hold the world in thrall to Jewry.

That was Herr Hitler's theory, anyway. (Not mine, I may add!)

Hitler believed that Germany could carve out an empire in the east to create "living space" (Lebensraum) for the German Folk, just as "England" had carved out for itself an overseas world empire.

Small problem: the Lebensraum was occupied by Slavic peoples. No matter: they were all subhumans, anyway; if Darwin's theory was correct, only the fittest would survive in the struggle for survival. The Aryans under German leadership, according to Hitler (and many others, including a large number of Englishmen and Frenchmen), were the supreme race and should win any struggle hands down.

Hitler couldn't understand why the UK declared war on Germany on September 3rd 1939.

To defend Poland?

How?

What for?

Hitler believed that he could come to an accomodation with the United Kingdom over his plans in Eastern Europe, which deal would run something like: if you let us play ball in the East and thereby do mankind a service eradicating the Jewish-Bolshevik virus there and, at the same time, setting up a huge German land empire stretching to the Urals, we'll let you keep your maritime Empire.

To keep an overseeas empire, however, Britain needed a huge fleet: that's how the Royal Navy came about. Ever since the end of Buonaparte's plan to make a French European hegemony, Britain had had a policy of maintaining a fleet that was at least twice the size of the next two biggest fleets combined. Any nation state that attempted to challenge British naval supremacy was deemed by British governments to be enemies, real or potential.

That's why the UK went to war with the German Empire in August 1914: the declaration of war made by the British goverment against the German Reich on August 3rd 1914 was not the result of the violation of Belgian neutrality by the German army in marching on Paris (that was just a propaganda trick to attain a position of moral supremacy) it was because German hegemony in Europe and the German Imperial fleet would be real threat to the "balance of power" that Britain enjoyed.

Hitler believed that Kaiser Wilhelm II had made a serious error in provoking the UK with his warship building policy and his demands that the arriviste German Empire have a "place in the sun". If the UK had not been provoked by Kaiser Bill's naval policy, it could well have been that the German army would have wiped the floor with the French (as they had done during the course of 6 weeks in 1870-1871) and the Russians would have then been dealt with accordingly and would have sued for peace.

If only this had happened! A quick German victory in the west followed by a negotiated peace with the Russian Empire would have meant no Bolshevik "revolution", no shameful Versailles Treaty terms for a defeated Germany, no fascists, no World War II.

If, after the fall of France in 1940 the French navy had been absorbed by the Kriegsmarine, that would have signalled that the THird Reich intended to destroy the British and their Empire. Hitler never wanted this, hence the hands-off policy towards the French navy. Hitler waited for peace overtures from the UK and a negotiated peace in the west, followed by his crusade to the east.

If Churchill had not been Prime Minister and Halifax had (he almost was), Hitler would have probably got what he wanted.

The British response was to ask the French navy to amalgamate with the Royal Navy. The French would not comply, so the British attacked the French capital ships that had sought refuge in Algerian French bases, which attack was a clear signal from Churchill to Hitler that there was going to be no deal between the UK and Germany.

The sad result of all this is that more French sailors died during WWII at the hands of the British than of the Germans.