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3rd May 2017, 02:13 AM | #41 |
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There was a 2016 documentary on a British TV channel yesterday, with an American commentary, called Hitler v Churchill. The trouble with it is that it wasn't the pure unadulterated historical truth.
It started off by saying that the democracies did nothing about Hitler's occupation of the Rhineland and Austria in the 1930s. Then it stated that Churchill at the time oversaw the British Army and British Navy and our secret service. That is not absolutely correct. Churchill had nothing to do with it after Churchill was in charge of the Admiralty, and then left after the Gallipoli fiasco in the 1914-18 war. The RAF was strengthened during the prime ministership of Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain, and radar introduced. Churchill was put in charge of the Admiralty at the outbreak of the second world war and he then commenced a disastrous intervention into Norway which ended in retreat. It was ill-equipped and lacking in administrative officers, or very efficient intelligence officers. There was talk of replacing Churchill when the war was going badly in 1942, which only ceased when one dull MP suggested in parliament that the Duke of Gloucester should replace him. Churchill suffered from want of judgement. It was only because he was guided by Field-Marshal Alanbrooke that there were not further disasters. |
4th May 2017, 12:02 AM | #42 |
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That sounds like an uncharacteristically inaccurate program right there. Are you absolutely sure that you are not misremembering in some way, like for example they said that Churchill had been in charge of those things at some time in the past rather than being in charge at the time ?
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4th May 2017, 02:13 AM | #43 |
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I suppose I might have misunderstood exactly what the commentary on that documentary was saying about Churchill having been in charge of everything before the war. It will probably be repeated so it can be checked. It's just to my mind Churchill has taken the political credit for everything just because he said he will write the history. Americans at the time thought Churchill was an armchair strategist, while now he is used by 'blame everything on Russia and Assad' Americans and Israelis as an example of what should have been done. Churchill's Foreign Secretary, Eden definitely did have want of judgment, which was proved in the Suez crisis of 1956. Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax had his head screwed on in the 1930s. It's just that he didn't want to be prime minister.
It was people like Lloyd George and the Duke of Windsor who were the appeasers. My own opinion is that our secret service was well aware that Hitler intended to march on Moscow from at least 1934, and that the British prime Ministers and Foreign Secretaries at the time would have been informed of that, if not the Russians. Chamberlain waving his piece of paper is what is known technically as political cunning and trickery. Fools and damned fools rush in where angels fear to tread. The Czechs would have lasted about three weeks. |
4th May 2017, 05:18 AM | #44 |
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4th May 2017, 08:55 AM | #45 |
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I have always been under the impression that our secret service gave Stalin proper warning that he was about to be attacked by the Germans in 1941, but that the Russians ignored the British because of their Nazi--Soviet pact with Ribbentrop. The Russians didn't trust what the British were saying. I wasn't around at the time. All the reports I have seen about the matter say Stalin was in a state of total shock for a couple of weeks after he had previously eliminated his best officers, and that he was expecting a coup against him.
The trouble is that the media, and people like Donald Trump, and even Mrs. May, are not profound and unbiased thinkers. There is some hard documentary evidence about all this in a book called the Ultra Secret by F.W. Winterbotham published in 1974 by Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London. He was in Air Intelligence and heavily involved in the Enigma secret The prime minister and Foreign Secretary would have been informed about all this and Winston Churchill when he became prime minister.
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4th May 2017, 09:23 AM | #46 |
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Stalin was told about the invasion by his own spies.
He didn't need to be told by ours. As for 1934, he talked about Germany's need to expand east in Mein Kampf, a decade prior. And finally, Winterbotham is one of the reasons the whole Coventry bombing foreknowledge nonsense took hold. So take his book with a pinch of salt as he seems to have had a tendency to embellish things. |
4th May 2017, 11:08 AM | #47 |
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Do you have any evidence to support that?
1) The Czechs had their own "Maginot line" along the German border. I concede, that was in Sudetenland, so the local population would have been more or less hostile. But when the German generals inspected it after the annexation of Sudetenland, they were relieved they didn't have to fight their way through. 2) The Czechs had a good army. In fact, most of the German tanks used in the Poland campaign were Czech ones. 3) The German generals, under leadership of Beck, had a plot to depose Hitler in case of a war with Czechoslovakia. British intelligence knew this, but they didn't quite trust it. 4) Germany didn't have any army units to spare for the West. While they could give some resistance to the token French invasion in 1939, in 1938 this would have been totally impossible. Even an army as low on morale as the French would have noticed that advance was a walk in the park. |
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4th May 2017, 01:52 PM | #48 |
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Yeah, their actions like giving Hitler Czechoslovakia with high value industrial base and very good tanks were very good bright ideas. (Terminal Case of Sarcasm) Without us, Hitler couldn't do that much. Wehrmacht might have succeeded in conquering us but only after taking heavy loess and nothing would be here intact (industrial base and infrastructure).
BTW: Calling initial action by France and GB after invasion of Poland as "waging war" is terminally idiotic. They did nothing. If they did, we wouldn't have had mega war. Those "best intentions" were total and brutal failure and directly lead to biggest war to day. Oh, nad it was very clear to quite few people that appeasement was idiotic bad idea. Certain Winston Churchill. was against it and got proven totally right. And that infamous Piece of **** (I usually don't use swear words, but that is the only correct name and descriptor for that "thing") was so great idea that it gave Hitler fresh industrial base and Wehrmacht new much better tanks. And almost got some interesting freshly developed things. It was one of things that directly enabled entire war! It was idiotic idea, obvious already back then. Chamberlain and co were idiots and world paid the price for their total idiocy. All that "subtlety" and "cunning". To bad all of it lead directly top war. If they forced Germany to have to fight us, they'd get more time and they ever needed. (And it was clear back then, they just ignored all of it in favor of idiotical fantasy) Precisely. Just little reminder: Large sections of defense line weren't finished at that time. (Although at bare minimum most of times bunkers were already in-place) === And last reminder: Especially GB was very lucky that Germans failed to get their hands on quiet few pieces of military technologies being developed here. Look up LittleJohn Adapter and Anti-tank rifle for some examples... |
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5th May 2017, 03:54 AM | #49 |
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Oh yes, they did. The French invaded the Saar over a 32km front and advanced some 8km. They tried to pass through a forest that was heavily mined, but they hadn't brought their anti-mining equipment (which they had). They had instruction to halt at least 1km before the Siegfried Line. And after two weeks, they withdrew.
If Daladier and Gamelin would have had the resolve of their predecessors Louis XIV and Comte de Mélac, the French army could easily have secured the Rhineland before Poland fell. Here's an amusing alt-history thread on that. Even more so if the French would have done so a year earlier, instead of Munich. The Siegfried Line would have been non-existent at the time. |
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6th May 2017, 02:27 AM | #50 |
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That's being an armchair strategist, and an armchair admiral.
Others, especially Churchill hoped that a strong military alliance with France would permit a more robust foreign policy towards the dictators. Many shared Churchill's confidence in the large French Army, although fewer shared his belief that France would be a resilient ally. Russia had spies but they didn't seem to get it into Stalin's head that he was about to be attacked. Stalin trusted Ribbentrop, who was later executed at Nuremberg. It has been said that Stalin was warned by Churchill in mid 1940, and from other sources. There was a Russian spy ring in Switzerland, I think called Lucy, which some say consisted of British double agents being fed with information from our secret service. The British, with the help of some brainy people in Poland had cracked the German codes. Our secret service knew German reserves were being massed on the Russian border in January 1941. The Americans had cracked the Japanese codes. It has also been said that the German Admiral Canaris, was one of ours, and Oster who warned of the German attack through the Ardennes in 1940, but he was not believed. They both died in concentration camps towards the end of the war. The Coventry bombing foreknowledge was a false story because, according to Peter Calvocoressi, Enigma never deciphered that information. The first casualty of war is the truth. That may not be the historical truth. |
7th May 2017, 09:13 AM | #51 |
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The French High Command was in a bad state. They still had the defensive warfare mind set of the 1914-18 war, unlike the Panzer Grenadier air and land blitzkrieg and dive bomber tactics, which are now used by Israel.
I used to think the Duke of Windsor was used by our secret service to spy on the Germans, and even to deceive them, because of his powerful political and family connections in Germany, and his wife's connection to Ribbentrop. I now think that because of his lack of a sense of proportion, and lack of discretion with his Nazi sympathiser pals, that he became a security risk, and he was then packed off to the colonies for the rest of the war. The Duke of Windsor, as a Major-General, had a job at the beginning of the war of spying on the French Army. What he reported was reasonable and sensible, but not regarded as credible, and there were worries that those reports were going to Berlin. There is a bit of waffle about this in a book called Edward V111 by Philip Ziegler, Collins, London 1990:
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8th May 2017, 02:33 AM | #52 |
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There is a bit about strategy and Winston Churchill in a 1947 book called The Russian Outlook, by Lieutenant-General Sir Giffard Martel, Michael Joseph, London:
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8th May 2017, 05:48 AM | #53 |
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I have no idea what this has to do with my response.
Or indeed much of the rest, so I've cut to the parts that at least seem related to my post. And? I said he had his own spies. He ignored them quite happily, he didn't need British spies for that. So did the Russians! You cannot hide that sort of troop movement. Since I brought it up because of Winterbotham, the foreknowledge fell down because none of the timings he used fitted in with documented events. As I said, he had a tendency to make stuff up. |
9th May 2017, 02:13 AM | #54 |
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9th May 2017, 03:50 AM | #55 |
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Well, the most well known Soviet one (though not only) was Sorge in Japan.
Stalin seems to have just been hoping none of it was true. Hell, Churchill told him. He essentially had a breakdown in the immediate aftermath... |
9th May 2017, 06:31 AM | #56 |
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Stalin's colleagues expected a German invasion too, but didn't dare to contradict their master. Here's Beria, covering his rear
Just a day before the German invasion when Beria sent Stalin a report with the prediction of Vladimir Dekanozov, the Soviet ambassador in Berlin, that the attack was imminent, the secret police chief prefaced it with the declaration: "My people and I, Joseph Vissarionovich, firmly remember your wise prediction: Hitler will not attack us in 1941!"Beria knew Dekanosov was right, and was insuring himself in case Stalin decided to make Beria a scapegoat in the event of an invasion. The ruse was successful. |
9th May 2017, 08:38 AM | #57 |
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I have never been clear about exactly what Kim Philby told Stalin. I agree Stalin believed his spies in Japan, who told him the Japanese were not going to attack Russia in 1941. That was crucial information as Stalin was then able to transfer Siberian troops to the defence of Moscow in the mud and frosts of 1941. The German tanks and equipment froze up in the extreme cold of a Russian winter. The German troops were not given winter clothing.
I have always had a gut feeling, though no hard documentary evidence, that for some reason the Russians knew EXACTLY where and when, and the exact time of the attack, when the Germans started that decisive tank battle at Kursk in 1943. In previous years they did not have that kind of information, a bit like the British at Dunkirk. There is a reference in that Ultra Secret book by Winterbotham in 1974 to Kim Philby:
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10th May 2017, 01:40 AM | #58 |
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Seriously...don't use Winterbotham.
As for Kursk, yes they did know. That's well documented. They had a spy in Bletchley, as well as their network in Switzerland, who all informed them of the build up around Kursk. All helped by the off-again, on-again nature of the German planning for the attack. |
11th May 2017, 02:37 AM | #59 |
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I don't know about the Russians having a spy in Bletchley. Evidence and source?
In that World at War TV documentary in 1973, which keeps being repeated on British TV, there is an interview with a Russian army officer who was involved in that Kursk tank battle in 1943. He said that the Russians obtained their intelligence information from reconnaissance and information from German prisoners of war. I think that's most unlikely. Most, if not all, of those German prisoners would not have the high grade information about times and strategic and tactical decisions. That Russian army officer was being economical with the historical truth. There is some waffle about all this in a book called Top Secret Ultra by Peter Calvocoressi published by Sphere Books , London, 1981
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11th May 2017, 03:17 AM | #60 |
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John Cairncross.
As for info from prisoners, that's a very common event, especially for operations like the one planned for Kursk when they get postponed. It just gives the other side more time to get useful information. |
11th May 2017, 04:17 AM | #61 |
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The officer is being quite accurate with the truth. You get a lot of information from interrogating prisoners - units, type of equipment, state of said equipment, morale, short term operational information. When you capture a few panzermen and they tell you they've been pulled slightly back for refits/new kit, combine that with a slackening of the artillery strikes your own forces are getting, and the reinforcements arriving to the infantry units (which you've confirmed by grabbing a few landsers) then you can tell that the enemy is getting ready for offensive ops. This is something all militaries do
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11th May 2017, 08:24 AM | #62 |
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I grant you that John Cairncross might have provided crucial information for the Russians for the battle of Kursk in 1943, but not in 1942. This is getting into deep waters and much of it is still secret. Cairncross seems to have died in 1995. Previously to 1995 he had quite willingly confessed to his activities. He might, though there is no hard evidence to back this up, have been controlled by our secret service to provide the Russians with information. The Russians seem to think he was one of theirs.
There is another funny business with regard to parachuting British agents into Holland, who were then immediately captured, which was SOE business. I think somebody called Leo Marks became suspicious about why things were going wrong. I have always thought, though I may be wrong, that those British and Dutch agents were sacrificed in order to protect Admiral Canaris, and to give him political credit with Hitler for out-tricking the British. There is a bit of waffle about this on the internet:
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12th May 2017, 01:39 AM | #63 |
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Where did 1942 come from?
You brought up Kursk (1943) in the middle of a discussion of Barbarossa (1941)! Please...I know I keep asking this, and it's probably a vain hope...please focus, Henri. |
12th May 2017, 02:53 AM | #64 |
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The point I have been making all along is that Chamberlain and Halifax knew Hitler was going to attack Russia and march on Moscow. That was the British strategy. Stalin didn't believe the British. Our secret service were loathe to explain to Stalin about the Ultra and Enigma secret because they were afraid the Germans would find out about it once the Russians were informed.
Stalin was provided with information through official channels from Barbarossa onwards, but still by 1942 he was ignoring it. The Russians launched a massive counter-attack after the Germans nearly reached Moscow in 1941, and then they fell into a German trap in 1942, with extremely tough Siberian troops, in which three Russian armies were lost and taken prisoner. I don't know how much Ultra information the Russians were given with regard to Stalingrad at the end of 1942. It's plausible that John Cairncross was used by our secret service to provide the Russians with information that would be in the British national interest, but no more, and which Stalin would believe. As F.W. Winterbotham wrote in his book:
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There is information about John Cairncross on the internet: www.alchetron.com/John-Cairncross-1375595-W
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12th May 2017, 03:08 AM | #65 |
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Henri, when do you think they started planning Barbarossa?
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12th May 2017, 03:53 AM | #66 |
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If I may intrude. The wiki article on this subject states
the German High Command began planning an invasion of the Soviet Union in July 1940 (under the codename Operation Otto), which Adolf Hitler authorized on 18 December 1940.Neville Chamberlain died on 9 November 1940, so it is most unlikely that he could have had advance warning of the operation. |
12th May 2017, 08:22 AM | #67 |
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As a previous poster on this forum has said Hitler wrote in his Mein Kampf book in the 1920s that he wanted to attack Russia. F.W. Winterbotham has written that he found out in 1934 from his sources in Germany the approximate time Hitler intended to attack Russia. I don't know if the mainstream media at the time ever informed the public and the House of Commons about all this, but I'm convinced Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax were fully aware of it.
There was a report on a TV documentary once that the Czech prime minister, I think called Benes, fainted when Hitler threatened to bomb Prague in 1938. Many writers with regard to the matter seem to suggest that the British tried to delay Hitler's invasion of Russia by moving into Greece and Crete. Field Marshal Alanbrooke had something to say about that in The Turn of the Tide book by Arthur Bryant in 1957:
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It looks like the Russians used spies and intelligence other than reconnaissance and German prisoners of war for the Battle of Stalingrad at the end of 1942. This is a quote from the book Enemy at the Gates The Battle of Stalingrad by the American William Craig published 1973:
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12th May 2017, 08:40 AM | #68 |
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How can Hitler have known in 1934 the time when he would invade Russia? That is preposterous. He didn't have an Air Force or a substantial army then. Of course he hated the Jewish Bolsheviks, as he perceived the rulers of the USSR to be, and presumably always intended to deal with them if and when an opportunity presented itself. But that is a very different thing from Dekanozov and Beria being aware on the eve of the invasion, that it was going to take place very shortly.
If Chamberlain had merely said to Stalin in 1938: the fascists will attack you if they get a chance, Stalin would merely have said, I know that. Didn't I warn in 1931 that we mustn't fall behind technologically, we must achieve a hundred years of progress in ten years, or the capitalists will invade and defeat us? Prescient, eh? And all done with the magic powers of Marxism-Leninism, not deciphering machines. |
12th May 2017, 03:21 PM | #69 |
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THis is true.
Though the Russians did have other sources of intelligence.....they had,as someone mentioned, a mole at Bletchly Park...though I suspect that if Ultra had picked up info on the German build up, it would have been passed on to the Soviets,with suitable cover stories as to where it came from. |
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13th May 2017, 12:30 AM | #70 |
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13th May 2017, 08:39 AM | #71 |
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In a way you could accuse Stalin of appeasement. He should have read Hitler's Mein Kampf and talked to Hitler and his associates in 1934, like our secret service did, instead of trusting Ribbentrop with an agreement and piece of paper. Hitler wanted to smash up the Red army. Chamberlain and Lord Halifax were well aware of that.
There is a bit of historical background to all this in a book called the Russian Outlook by Lieutenant-General Sir Giffard Martel published in 1947. Some of this applies today:
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14th May 2017, 02:53 AM | #72 |
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As I have said before Hitler intended to invade Russia from the time he wrote Mein Kampf in the 1920s. This was well known by our secret service, and by Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax. At the Nuremberg trials after the war it was mentioned that the political plans for Russia were discussed in April 1941, before Barbarossa. That was to be an 'Armenian' genocide of the Slav peoples including the Polish people and Ukrainians and Russians. This was only postponed after the Stalingrad and Kursk battles, which dwarfed most of the other battles in the war. My own father was involved in some of the battles in North Africa and Italy.
Stalin was not much better with his Katyn massacre of the Poles at the beginning of the war, in which about 22000 Poles were murdered, including the Polish officer class and Polish intelligentsia. I remember reading a book by an Indian General once who said Hitler should have defeated Britain before he invaded Russia. Personally, I believe that if Winston Churchill had been in control in 1938, and Britain had gone to war then over the Czechs, then Britain would have been defeated. Chamberlain provided another year to get organised, instead of a 'with what' strategy. I don't know what Hitler's plans for the British and Irish and Canadians and Americans was once they were defeated. The Japanese wanted Australia and New Zealand. The Jews and Jehovah Witnesses were the priority, and they now get most of the historical publicity. There is a bit of waffle about this matter on the internet: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Order_(Nazism))
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14th May 2017, 03:03 AM | #73 |
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Of course he did, but that has nothing to do with ultra intercepts indicating the date of Barbarossa and this being passed to Stalin by double agents. These are two separate things, and mixing them up produces complete nonsense. Yes Chamberlain knew the Nazis hated Bolshevism in the 1920s. No, the UK didn't send forces to Greece to delay the onset of Barbarossa until too late in the campaigning season. To suggest that the second of these propositions is proved by the first is an absurdity.
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14th May 2017, 07:57 AM | #74 |
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My father once said when he was alive as a kind of joke that Hitler's decision to invade Russia was the best news of the war. In the end it turned out to be a strategic blunder for Hitler.
There is some story which keeps being repeated on various TV documentaries that Hitler launched a huge bombing raid on London in May 1941 as a deception to fool his enemies into thinking Britain was going to be the next target, and not Russia. It didn't fool our secret service or Chamberlain. Much of the documentation about the invasion of Russia, and about German extermination plans and concentration camps, was deliberately destroyed by the Germans towards the end of the war so that they could categorically deny everything and say they were only obeying orders. I find it annoying that many German war criminals prospered after the war, and many others went to America. I think there was a decision in about 1953 to forgive Germany of all its debts which never applied to the UK There is a bit about the matter in that Peter Calvocoressi Top Secret Ultra book published in 1981:
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14th May 2017, 09:33 AM | #75 |
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14th May 2017, 06:20 PM | #76 |
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One of the most interesting facts that I've learned reading German scholarly literature about Weimer and the Nazi period is the almost gobsmacking mendacity of much of the German Right in the period between the wars. It is in my opinion one of the great examples of what has been called "Treason of the Intellectuals". So much of the intellectual and political leadership of the German Right between the wars was dedicated to promoting the stab in the back lie, along with blaming every little thing that went wrong for Germany on the Treaty of Versailles.
Many modern German historians have been quite scathing about this intellectual betrayal. The stab in the back lie started even before the Treaty of Versailles was signed and was heavily promoted. If their letters are anything to go on both Ludendorf and Hindenburg quite deliberately off loaded signing the armistice onto civilians precisely so that those civilians could be blamed and the Weimer republic discredited and of course to enhance their own political prospects. This absolute refusal to accept responsibility is dare I say unpatriotic and was a disservice to the German nation that those two professed to love. Further both Ludendorf and Hindenburg knew the truth that Germany had militarily lost the war and was very likely only c. 6 months or so removed from crushing defeat when they signed the armistice. But coolly and deliberately they lied and knew they were lying. Of course Ludendorf and Hindenburg who spouted these lies to a Reichstag investigation committee in 1919, (Which was only one of the many, many occasions they spouted these lies.), were only two of the many, many intellectuals ands leaders on the German right who lied, fabricated and exaggerated, many if not most of them doing so while they knew the truth; and all for political gain. And they achieved such gain by promoting nonsense and conspiracy theories of betrayal. What amazes me is how such people can be called Patriots. |
15th May 2017, 01:27 AM | #77 |
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It's because Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Boswell tells us that Samuel Johnson made this famous pronouncement that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel on the evening of April 7, 1775. He doesn't provide any context for how the remark arose, so we don't really know for sure what was on Johnson's mind at the time.I think Johnson wasn't quite right. Patriotism is the first recourse, as well as the last refuge, of a scoundrel. |
15th May 2017, 02:13 AM | #78 |
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The point is that Chamberlain knew Germany was going to invade Russia when he was alive. Chamberlain was clever. His Munich waving of a piece of paper was a spoof full of blah- blah about the Anglo-German Naval agreement, which was a load of bollocks, and he knew it, even if the public and House of Commons and media didn't. Chamberlain had said previously that treaties and agreements can't be depended on to keep the peace.
There was some kind of politician called Chips Channon at the time who described Chamberlain and Halifax as great men, unlike the hare-brained Edenites, like Winston Churchill. Channon described Chamberlain as the best Minister of Health we have had and a good administrator. There is an analysis of Churchill and his Gathering Storm book at this website, with which I agree: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwa...storm_01.shtml This is part of it:
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15th May 2017, 03:01 AM | #79 |
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This is drivel. And the reference to Stalin's Russia is drivel too. The USSR became part of the solution when Hitler invaded it, and it found itself on the same side as the western allies whether it wanted to be or not. What should Churchill have done? Joined Hitler in his war against the Bolsheviks? In the event nine tenths of the German troops killed in the war were killed by Soviet forces' action. That was the main part of the solution of the problem presented by Hitler.
Now Chamberlain, like everybody else (including Stalin), knew that Hitler desired to destroy the Bolsheviks and would make war on them if opportunity arose. But the question at issue is, if Chamberlain knew that Hitler was plotting war imminently in early 1941. Stalin refused to accept the evidence that war was imminent. Chamberlain never examined the evidence, because he was dead. |
15th May 2017, 03:13 AM | #80 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 5,229
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Well, that's a tad unlikely, having had their 6th army annihilated at Stalingrad, and a ton of other casualties during the Soviet counterattack during the winter.
Or did you mean 1942? Which might be at least arguable, if you don't analyse the situation too closely. |
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