Hitler, the Nazis and World War Two etc etc

[Fleetwood Mac]

I would dispute this 'growing anti-Americanism' in the UK.

Well, my perception is different.

Post the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, I both sense and dicoverin conversations, a much increased cynicism about the US, its culture and values and a feeling that the UK should not be "America's poodle", that very much draws on that.

This is in direct contrast to the views I have found through most of my life.

My discussions arise from a wide range of contacts with all manner of people, and are not mine (I am broadly and strongly pro-US).

The regime was perceived as particularly unlikeable, and I would say lost much of the UK sympathy post 9/11. Obama was initially greeted almost as a messiah here, but again is now seen much less positively.

Happy to expand on this,

Phil

Seems we mix in very different circles, Phil.

Obama may have been popular with The Guardian and The Independent, but I don't recall the welcome that he received in Germany being replicated here: surely one measure of his popularity.

The vast majority of people (in fact just about everyone) I know have virtually no interest in the United States, except her music and films. Not pro nor anti-US.

I would say, at the risk of simplifying this, that, of those who care one way or the other, the left tend to lean towards continental Europe and the right to the US.

I think England is an insular nation, comes with being an island nation, and in my view the like of The Guardian and The Independent tend to overplay the whole thing as those people really need a cause.

So, I don't think the strength of feeling, one way or the other, is there.

And, I'm scratching my head struggling to understand exactly why the 'Americans' should be the object of anyone's frustrations. What? Foreign policy is driven by self-interest? Well, there's a surprise. Of course, the French are these virtuous human beings toiling ceaselessly for everyone bar themselves.

And, Britain as the US's poodle? Oversimplified. We get a very good deal out of the Americans running the world; the best we could expect considering we're a small nation off the North West coast of Europe. Again, foreign policy driven by self-interest.

I think there's a lot of jealousy, which is why people point out the like of Iraq, which I agree with by the way (I think democracy is organic and people have to sort it out for themselves), but fail to get their own house/s in order. Anything to criticise the US, because, let's face it, they left Europe behind about 60 years ago and continue to prosper in a way we do not.

[Phil H]

I would dispute this 'growing anti-Americanism' in the UK.

Well, my perception is different.

Post the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, I both sense and dicoverin conversations, a much increased cynicism about the US, its culture and values and a feeling that the UK should not be "America's poodle", that very much draws on that.

This is in direct contrast to the views I have found through most of my life.

My discussions arise from a wide range of contacts with all manner of people, and are not mine (I am broadly and strongly pro-US).

The regime was perceived as particularly unlikeable, and I would say lost much of the UK sympathy post 9/11. Obama was initially greeted almost as a messiah here, but again is now seen much less positively.

Happy to expand on this,

Phil

[Fleetwood Mac]

So you are valid on your point there.

Jeff

Fair enough, Jeff.

I think John Locke made a big mistake when he garnished 'tolerance' with the caveat of being intolerant of the intolerant. It's all or nothing in my book, and it would pay to allow people their views and lifestyle no matter the general consensus.

I'm certainly not excusing any violence towards any group because it shouldn't happen and there's nothing worse than bullying. I suppose I'm attempting to place it in its historical context, which I suppose is a big argument for separation of church and state.

[Fleetwood Mac]

Now, as with growing ant-Americanism (certainly in the UK, maybe across Europe) I see and sense a dramatic change to a more critical attitude to Israel.

I would dispute this 'growing anti-Americanism' in the UK.

In Europe, there has always been a sort of 'look down your nose' attitude when viewing the US (among some sections, obviously others thought it attractive enough to move there), but I would say that applies more to France and Germany than England.

From the very moment the US was formed, Europeans scoffed, particularly the elites/establishment. So you have the likes of de Toucqueville with a back handed compliment: 'they're engaged in politics over there but they'll always vote for mediocre leaders' (or words to that effect).

The whole thing is borne out of arrogance, misplaced at that, because, in fact, the Americans have a political system that is an improvement on the European model, and they have been successful by anyone's standards. And, bizarrely, your average American was better fed and better educated than your average European when all of this scoffing was taking place, because of course de Toucqueville was really talking about preserving a by-gone age while the Americans were talking about progress.

The only anti-Americanism in England that I can think of are among those who have always existed: the liberal middle classes who are besotted with France and her culture (Independent readers).

And, I suppose the American Empire will be brought up somewhere along the line, but then we've all had a crack at it; and personally if it can't be us I'd much rather it be the Americans than the Chinese, Russians or continental Europeans.

[Phil H]

One of the biggest and most unexpected changes I have seen in my life, along with the fall of the Berlin Wall/end of USSR, is the changed public perception of the state of Israel.

For about 2 thirds of my life, there was - in the west at least - a sort of deference of Israel and its policies (I have always assumed based on a sort of collective guilt for the events of 1933-45).

Now, as with growing ant-Americanism (certainly in the UK, maybe across Europe) I see and sense a dramatic change to a more critical attitude to Israel.

So I would ask this question - was the creation of the state of israel, in hindsight, a wise or sensible decision. While problems would have replaced those we know today, would world peace, and certainly the Middle east, have been better off without Israel exisiting? (I'm assuming that Jews would have gone on living safely in individual countries.)

I believe that there was once a scheme to settle Jews/create a state of israel in what is now Uganda. I have always had a mental picture that, if that had happened, the Jews in that never-was Israel, would have spent their time fighting their way step by step back to what they saw as their true homeland in the Levant. (Maybe the what-ifs of Israel might warrant a separate thread though.)

Phil

[Adam Went]

Errata:

Thank you, i'm pleased that you understand my point of view. It's quite a good thing that there has been a lot of reconciliation between old enemies in recent years - notably the 60th anniversary of D-Day back in 2004 - but there's still a lot of open wounds and probably always will be, so it's a risky business for some to offer anything resembling positive thoughts of the Nazis, even from the earlier, less brutal part of their reign.

But indeed history is history and it must be recorded as accurately and without prejudices as much as possible.
Phil H:

I think you're pretty much spot on in what you say.
Hitler had the power of oration, he was a great speaker - there's many accounts of how he would grasp the attention of a crowd and keep them spellbound. This was in his younger and more energetic days, towards the end of the war he was a very sick man and a shadow of his former self, not to mention delusional at times.

But in the 30's he had the ability to unite the nation behind him, even if some people still had their doubts. Many people had misgivings in the back of their mind but saw how successful their country was going so they just went with it.

They might see a Jewish friend from the neighbourhood being beaten up or looted, but let it slide because their own fortunes had improved so dramatically. It was this tendency to turn a blind eye which led to more difficulties in later years.

I've had the good fortune of communicating with both Allied and German war veterans over the years and they are all perfectly decent individuals, but like millions of others they got swept up in a massive tidal wave with Hitler at the very top in the 30's - especially, as i've mentioned, for the younger ones such as members of the Hitler Youth who grew up during that period and were indoctrinated from the beginning.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Roy Corduroy]

... the Allies unwillingness to allow Jews to immigrate was responsible for the formation of Israel. Allies feel awful about the Holocaust, and are very nervous about a Jewish influx into their own countries, give them their own country, problem solved. Guilt assuaged.

Are you talking about before, during, or after the war? I'm not sure what you're getting at. It was only three years after the war that Israel became a nation.

As to the US Army and the death camps, and any malfeasance on the part of the Allies resulting in lives losts that could have been saved, I am in total disagreement with you on that. The wholesale liberation of the camps by the western allies was a physical impossibility. Just look at a map.

Roy

[Errata]

Blaming the Allies for the Holocaust is wrong. On every level. It's revisionist history at its worst.

Roy

It certainly would be revisionist history at it's worst. I assume you mention it because you thought I suggested it. I did not. I suggested that the Holocaust AND the Allies unwillingness to allow Jews to immigrate was responsible for the formation of Israel. Allies feel awful about the Holocaust, and are very nervous about a Jewish influx into their own countries, give them their own country, problem solved. Guilt assuaged.

The Allies have no responsibility for the Holocaust, though I think everyone could agree that things might have been different had they made the liberation of camps a priority. Not a lot different, but maybe a little. But that doesn't make the Allies any more responsible for the Holocaust than a fireman who makes a few rookie mistakes is responsible for the fire being set. The best anyone could do was mitigate damage as best as they were able, and even that requires reliable intelligence. And it remains unclear how much of that we had in our possession, and whether it ever got where it was needed. Certainly it was known they existed, but since the soldiers and commanders who liberated the first dozen camps or so had no idea they were there, what they were, and had never even heard of such a thing, it begs a few questions. One would assume that the US army, knowing that their guys were going into territory where there were camps, would have sent out a blurb saying "Hey guys, you might run into death camps. Be polite and call us immediately-love, the Brass". But they didn't. Eisenhower knew about them in theory, but evidently the information was never disseminated. So how can you ask someone to rescue a people they have no idea are in severe danger? And since it makes no sense to withhold information that in a very real sense profoundly affects the soldiers, it can only be assumed that the people who would ordinarily make that decision just didn't know. But there were camps in Paris that weren't shut down til 44-45. How does THAT happen?

I think it can only happen if the Allies just were not in possession of the information that the US government and stateside Jews had. That death camps and concentration camps were a very real threat, and numerous enough to make a serious dent in non-Aryan populations. So how does THAT happen?

[Mayerling]

Hi Jeff.

Offering a differing point of view on this:

The pre 1700s were blighted by religious strife that did not only affect 'the Jews'. There were all sorts of people being turfed out for their non conformist views. That was the name of the game then, with the established church being at the head of the state.

In the modern period, Germany had a good record of relations (good in the sense of what was going in elsewhere, granted).

I would agree with Hunter in the main that the majority of Germans weren't anti-semitic. 'Peace and Order' was a phrase dear to the Germans. But there is a contradiction here: Hitler didn't bring 'Peace and Order'; he brought carnage.

It's a bit of a mess to try and figure it out, and I suppose the Nazis played the oldest trick in the book by offering everyone something in a populist extravaganza with little ground in reasoned politics.

But, don't underestimate the part played by street violence and coercion.

Hi Fleetwood,

I am willing to accept that universal intolerance reigned in the pre 1700s as you say. There is a book that was a popular best seller in the 1960s Max I. Dimont's JEWS, GOD, AND HISTORY, and in it Dimont actually made a comment like yours. He said that despite the history of anti-Semitic violence towards Jews in the medieval and reformation periods, there was no point where Jews found themselves put on a protective shelf: i.e. - say at the notorious rape and destruction of Magdeburg in the Thirty Years War, if the attacking troops entered a Jewish ghetto, they did not say to the Jews, "Are you Jewish or Christian?" Nor, had the Jews answered that they were Jews would the soldiers have said, "Oh, sorry to disturb you - we are going after your Christian neighbors only today!" It did not work like that. In 1648 the Jews in Poland were one of several groups aimed at for destruction by the Ukranians under Bogdan Chmielnicky. They were massacred (in some of the worst attrocities suffered by Jews that were comperable to the Holacaust) along with Polish people and Roman Catholic (and Lutheran) clergy. So you are valid on your point there.

I certainly don't underestimate street violence and coercion.

Jeff

[Zodiac]

And oddly enough we might never have learned how to treat people who had been submerged in freezing water for an extended time, and we wouldn't have the amazing medical procedures for the heart that stemmed from that knowledge.

Hi Errata, et al,

Bloody typical!!! I'm only away for a week and yet I return to find that some kind of terrible "Putsch" has taken place, and that this has now become "The Adolf Hitler Casebook"!!! On a more serious note, while I would not consider myself qualified enough to add anything particularly new to this debate, I can most certainly confirm the truth of Errata's above quote. The Luftwaffe had found that many of its downed pilots/aircrew were still alive in the water when the S-Boat/E-Boat etc. arrived on the scene, and yet so many of them died in the very process of being rescued. While it cannot, ever, even come within a million miles of justifing the very existance of the camps, let alone excusing all of the the unspeakable "medical experiments" that were carried out, it does remain a simple fact that the whole way we go about recovering a person from prolonged immersion in ice cold water has undergone something of a revolution due to the knowledge gleaned from Nazi experiments which, I'm very sorry to say, used humans as guinea pigs.

Best wishes,
Zodiac.

[Mayerling]

It's funny. I can't put him in the same category as the Nazi's either, if I compare the two. However, if you get me started on Nanking (in which Hirohito absolutely took an active role), I will absolutely use words like genocide, evil, monstrous, etc. I will directly compare him to the Nazi leadership and the Final Solution.

So it appears that I DO put them in the same category, when I'm not... taking it personally I guess. More like, If I let my righteousness talk, and not my self-righteousness.

Hi Errata,

Thanks for at least correcting about his involvement in the rape of Nanking. But on the whole I still think the Emperor's position with the militants was far more tricky than Hitler's with the Junkers. At no time in the 1930s did the German military heirarchy confront Hitler and demand that BOTH the storm troopers and the S.S. be disbanded or he be kicked out. The Junkers were far too passive. I don't know if this was due to their secret guilty feelings that they failed the German people by not winning the Great War, and were in a psychological moment to actually accept a civilian government run by a fiery militant. But whatever was the cause they did not confront and force change on Hitler (I suspect if they had he may very well have collapsed or given in). With Emperor Hirohito his position was not that secure. The title of Emperor (in the national Shinto religion) held people's awe and support, but did not fully translate to the small who wore the uniform and rode the horse at national occasions. Hirohito's position with the militants control reminds me of a line from an old movie where Claude Rains is a famous early 20th Century stage producer and dramatist. Asked if he can save an actress in a grueling, difficult role, Rains yells out, "I'm David Belasco - I can make a telegraph pole look good on stage!" Similarly the militarists like Tojo could have told Hirohito, "We are so good we can make your brother look like a better Emperor than you!" And I am afraid Hirohito knew that.

[Roy Corduroy]

...if the Allied countries hadn't feared a massive influx of Jews into their own population

Blaming the Allies for the Holocaust is wrong. On every level. It's revisionist history at its worst.

Roy

[Errata]

Germany clearly struggled, but through no fault of it's own. Serving two masters pretty much screws everyone over.

Through most of my youth (I was born some 6 years after the war), WEST Germany was regarded as an economic miracle - so I don't know to what you refer.

Perhaps more fair to say half of the country struggled, at least economically and politically. I would say the whole country struggled in terms of self determination. They felt they were a divided country. And it's hard to be self determined when half of your population is bottled up in an oppressive regime.

On building a Berlin Wall in Iraq

I always thought that building the original wall was perceived as the act of a dictatorship, as illiberal and threatening.

But maybe that's the way the US wants to be seen these days!!

Phil

Oh it's completely amoral. Dictatorial, demeaning, completely unacceptable in terms of foreign affairs. The US would never consider such a thing.

But sometimes amoral actions lead to positive results. I think everyone would wish that the Holocaust had never happened, but if it hadn't, and if the Allied countries hadn't feared a massive influx of Jews into their own population, Israel never would have been established. Bosnia would have been ten times worse. And oddly enough we might never have learned how to treat people who had been submerged in freezing water for an extended time, and we wouldn't have the amazing medical procedures for the heart that stemmed from that knowledge.

I'm not suggesting we build a wall in Iraq. I'm just saying that it might be a cheap and dirty way to win hearts and minds. But just because it might be a shortcut doesn't mean I think it's worth it. Just a concept I was toying with out loud.

[Jonathan H]

To Phil H

The significance of Hitler's war record is that an Austrian veteran of the German army, but not a citizen of his chosen country for many years, this ex-Corporal (and ex-vet of homeless mens' shelters) could credibly claim to represent the German people -- once the country was turned into one gigantic Homeless shelter.

Without four years on the front line, to put it braodly, then nobody would ever have listened to his ranting oratory and he could never have arisen to become the absolute dictator of a country not his own.

In fact he never really set out to become a mob orator, it happened by accident, at least intially.

For an unscrupulous dissembler, Hitler spoke very true words when he said to a crowd in 1932: 'you found me and I found you.'

[Fleetwood Mac]

Hi Fleetwood

I don't think Hitler thought he was on the way out. I think he hoped to conquer the USSR and make the war pay for itself. True, he was a gambler, but each time he gambled and won he felt increasingly invincible, or singled out by Providence. In any case, the man was incapable of consolidating, since he had a kind of mental St Vitus dance.

Hi Robert,

Well, from the outset Hitler and associates weren't 100% confident of victory. There are references to the 'quality' (if that's the right word) of the Slavs. They simply felt the world wasn't big enough for both of 'em so one of 'em had to go. And, the Germans trained them in exchange for vehicles/weapons during the 1920s, and arrived at the conclusion the Russians would be a tough nut to crack.

A point aside: in Wilhelmine Germany, 'the Asiatic Hordes' were the problem with propaganda posters sent by the King himself to his cousins suggesting the christian nations were about to be savaged by 'the yellow peril'.