pain wrote:
Keep the British onside? That can easily be put down to wanting to not draw Britain into conflict until Germany was strong enough to fight her, a key concern of Hitler's foreign policy pre-September 1939.
I could probably get by without reading it, my reading around international affairs in this period is very extensive as the build up to WWII was approximately a quarter of my final year at uni and I got firsts in every assignment or exam that I did, sometimes at the top of the module group (about 50 other students).
Naval expansion would logically follow the building of a larger continental landmass. As I have said, subjugating Britain is likely to have followed but it was certainly not his aim to do that first, Hitler was far too pragmatic and intelligent for that.
You may or may not have heard of Copenhagen 1807, when the British, fearing Napoleon controlling the Danish fleet and using it to attack Britain, without any forewarning completely destroyed the fleet of a country they were not at war with.
This seriously affected confidence behind German naval policy before WWI (there's a good essay on this but I'm assuming you don't have access to historical journals) and, though I obviously can't prove it, could have served as a good reminder not to begin building a fleet that will match Britain's, unless you want to get hit by a pre-emptive strike.
...and obviously Britain did the same to the French fleet in ww2. (41? Can't think off the top of my head)
There's no way for either of us to prove what Hitler's ambitions were post a hypothetical victory over the Russians.
We didn't need to fight the Germans in 1939, and by indicating that we would do so, we doomed Poland. And sadly, we didn't actually do any fighting, just sat and watched for a year, as you know. Obviously this is because we didn't have any ability to fight the Germans on the continent. So surely it follows that declaring war was a bad idea? What was gained? Same goes for making peace in 1940. What was gained by remaining at war? Obviously it took some heat off the Russians, mostly through the bombing campaign. It's not as if militarily we caused the Germans much trouble. Tying up 2 good Panzer Divisions in North Africa is about the only achievement in 41-42. Surely, even if a resumption of hostilities between Britain and Germany was inevitable(I don't believe so, you obviously do), we would still have been better off making peace and building up for a future fight, we weren't inconveniencing the Germans close to as much as they were us whilst the two countries were in a state of war.
pain wrote:
Does the Rhineland ring any bells? Again, he was hardly going to go head on into a war with France when Germany didn't have the economy to back up going to war.
The Rhineland was obviously an integral part of Germany, and one that any German leader would have sought to regain control over. Without it, Germany was completely defenseless in the West against any French aggression. The fact is that even when it was reoccupied, all the French had to do was resist the few German battalions sent in, and Hitler would have pulled out again, fearing war/invasion by France and Britain. I don't think you can compare it to any other territory taken from the Germans at Versailles.
pain wrote:
“Germany will either be a world power or there will be no Germany” Mein Kampf p. 597 (trans. Manheim).
World power at the time was defined by having colonies overseas.
...or a continental Empire in the East.
pain wrote:
A more up to date and pretty decent read is W. Carr, Arms, Autarky and Aggression: A Study in German Foreign Policy, 1933-1939 (London, 1972)
I think that's quoted a cpl times in the Buchanan book, i'll look it up.
pain wrote:
I'm not gonna write a separate answer to every one of those quotes as you are just using what historians have said without putting it into the context of your own argument. Some of them are just contradictory. If you agree with AJP Taylor that Germany didn't want overseas colonies, then saying she wanted an alliance means she desired to be the smaller power in a relationship with Britain.
I don't really see that. How so? Germany with an Empire in the East would have been greater than Britain. Even without it they were proven stronger/greater by the events 39-42, before the entry of the Americans.
pain wrote:
One problem is France - how could anyone in London morally enter a unilateral alliance with Germany, leaving France out in the cold, whilst her hated and feared neighbour becomes one of the top world powers. Hitler might have seen himself as a natural racial ally with Britain, but why do you think that should have been reciprocated?
The reason I'm proud of the fact we went to war with Germany is that we didn't see a lunatic who wanted to exterminate all of the Jews in Europe as a natural ally, even if he did us. France were a progressive and liberal country so it was clearly better to keep her as an ally, for the unification of Germany had transformed her from our oldest enemy to Britain's natural ally.
There's definetely some truth to that. British politicians of the time were certainly driven by moralistic ideals. Admirable or not, this cost Britain the Empire and it's position as a world power, and in the end, all those morals were cast aside as we threw in our lot with Stalin.
pain wrote:
Also, if Hitler came for an alliance, how could that be trusted?? Hitler was in alliance with Russia when operation Barbarossa began I don't think any politician or statesman at the time could have judged that Hitler actually cared about helping Britain, rather than just using her as a naval ally whilst she wiped out opposition on the Continent - the first step in his evil genius world plan.
Obviously neither of us know the answer to that. How can we make any of these arguments when we blindly trusted the Russians though? Seems to me that you're massively underplaying the murderous nature of Stalinism and it's ambitions for world conquest. What's that Trotsky quote about the revolution not being complete until the whole world has experienced it?
pain wrote:
It's a well known fact amongst historians but I'll just give you the facts. It's very straight forward to see the connection between Finnland and Germany. Finnland was clearly sympathysing with Hitler and looked like to be an ally. Then there is the economic link: Germany aimed to be fully autarkic, but she never managed it. The key things missing were oil and iron ore. Germany's iron ore came from Finnland, cut that off and the German economic war machine would have ground to a halt.
So, now the link between Finnland and Germany is established, why were Russia worried? Just go on maps.google.com and have a look at how close to the border St Petersburg is. Also, you could try looking up where Finnland's ports were, which could have been used for German assitance in an attack to grab St Petersburg whilst Germany tore Russia open on the eastern front.
Russia didn't need any land control over Finland to cut off German supplies across the Baltic if and when it needed. It was more than capable of doing it by sea alone, at almost no risk due to the weakness of the German Baltic Sea fleet.
Can you provide me with some form of evidence or information regarding Finland looking like an ally of Germany? Everything i've read states close to the opposite. The fact that the Fins never actually allied the Germans despite being on the same side of a war for near on 5 years says quite a bit to me.
I've read quite a bit about Germany's problems with raw materials, and understand that a great % of it's iron ore came from Scandinavia. The occupation of Norway was to prevent a possible British cutoff of Swedish ore that travelled through Norway in the winter months, as i'm sure you know. Reading
The Chief Culprit it claims the Soviets kept "69 Battleships in the Baltic with the sole intention of sinking German iron ore transports in the event of war" ..It also says: "For defending the Soviet Union a fleet in the Baltic is not needed at all" and goes on to say that St Petersburg was untouchable from the sea to any Navy in the world due to it's impressive coastal batteries, etc. Finnish ports were no use to Germany for that.
Apparently all German Nickel supplies were also in Finland, and was even reliant on Finland for a large % of it's timber supplies. It's not in debate that Germany relied on Finland for a lot of it's raw materials. Despite that, if Germany hadn't existed, or needed Finland at all, the Soviets would still have attempted to crush the Fins.
The Chief Culprit is a great book on this subject but guess it's an argument for another day anyway.
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pain wrote:
I would reccomend research into both economic history and the realpolitik concept of the time that led nation's to believe they needed a protective sphere of influence, particularly when a dangerous enemy exists on your border. The baltics and Poland fall under the same category, before and after the war.
As it happens I think i've a relatively good understanding of this, but got any recommendations? Your stance is quite interesting though. Russians territorial gains were to maintain a 'sphere of influence' but German gains were just simple agression? It seems to me your opinion is suffering from some bias as well.
pain wrote:
I think I would be repeating myself to again justify why western Europe could not allow Hitler to become five times more powerful economically and militarily. I'll say no to the quotes.
But allowing Russia to become 10 times more powerful was a good idea? Total stupidity and hypocrisy from France and Britain. We destroyed ourselves fighting one evil dictator to replace him with another, one with even more blood on his hands. The only reason that Stalin didn't make it to Calais is the presense of the Americans in Europe in 1945, which certainly wasn't something Britain could have relied on when it went to war.
pain wrote:
Russia never had any interest in Britain? Have you heard of The Great Game?? Britain clearly were worried about Russia eventually (Cold War) but there are 2 major differences to her and Germany in 1939, I'll start with the obvious: 1. Any long-term war or invasion would have been IMPOSSIBLE. It wasn't even worth considering. There is literally no way Britain and France could have defeated Russia in a war.
Or Germany. But neither Germany or Russia could defeat Britain either. So why go to war?
pain wrote:
2. (Massively repeating myself here as I've not seen an effective counter to this point yet) Germany was not expanding for reasons of realpolitik/spheres of influence. She was expanding purely out of aggression and a desire to make herself a world power. Russia already was a major power, why bother to stop her taking a bit of the Baltic or Poland. Russia was very inward looking before WWII, but she was paranoid at Hitler trying to repeat what Germany did in 1914-17 (sensibly I think you'd agree) and paranoid after western interference in her domestic matters.
Actually i'd counter that Russia was planning world conquest from 1920 onwards. I'm sure you've studied the Soviet-Polish war of 1920. It's obviously a whole other argument but the numerous Stalin/Trotsky quotes about the revolution not being completed until it encompassed the world are a good start surely. The whole point of The Chief Culprit that I keep mentioning is that Stalin was planning conquest of Europe from 1920 onwards, even supporting the Germans economically and militarily to build them up to be strong enough to fight the west, with the west destroying itself in the process.
It just seems like incredible hypocrisy and a massive contradiction to claim that allowing Russia to expand was ok, and her right(even though she was already a world power, as you say) but allowing Germany to expand was something worth exhausting this country and destroying the empire to prevent? How so?
When I say Russia had no interest in Britain, i'm talking short term. Just as i'm claming for Hitler. I have no doubt that the Russians would have marched into London if they could, and i'm sure they planned it eventually. Should we have declared war on them too, just because one day they might want to attack us? Which is basically you're entire argument for declaring war on Germany.
Calix wrote:
What were Britain's interests in Poland? What did we seek to gain from declaring war in their support? And before you even reach that point, I can provide a wealth of quotes explaining why the German invasion of Poland was brought about by British-backed Polish intransigence over Danzig rather than any desire of the Nazi's to make war on Poland. All the evidence points to a desire for a strategic alliance with Poland against Russia. Again i'm happy to provide evidence and quotes.
pain wrote:
Before I answer that, then, please provide evidence in your own words rather than just quotes. I'm not debating with google.
Lets examine the issue then. What did Germany want from Poland? Danzig. a town that was German for centuries, populated by 350,000 Germans, and less than 50,000 Poles. A German town, taken from it's nation by the stupidity of Versailles. Every British politician of the time, with the exception of Churchill, believed the city should be returned to Germany. If the city had been returned to Germany peacably, perhaps Hitler would still have marched in, and conquered Poland, as he did to the Czech's after the Sudetenland. I don't believe he would have, however. For a start, the main reason Hitler occupied Bohemia and Moravia were 1. The Skoda works, second biggest munitions works in the world, and 2. That he felt he had been humiliated by Benes, and wanted to see him humbled. Secondly, occupying Poland was a much bigger undertaking than Czechoslovakia.
The Nazi's preferred the Poles as allies in an eventual attack on Russia. The Poles also preferred the Germans as the lesser of two evils. Quoting your mate AJP again, Ribbentrop told Lipski "a joint policy towards Russia on the basis of the anti-comintern pact" could be adopted, once the Danzig issue was resolved in Germany's favour.
"in the early days of 1939, Hitler believed that Polish foreign minister Beck was so well versed in the principles of real politik that he would be glad to go hand in hand with the Nazi leaders in a joint search for plunder that was weakly guarded by the broken down states of Europe" - Charles Callan Tansill(who is quoted as such in the Buchanan book)
So why did Germany go to war with Poland? The stupidity of Chamberlain and Churchill, basically. Are we in agreement that the war guarantee Britain offered to Poland did not benefit Poland? It ended in it being occupied by both the Russians and the Germans in 39, and cost them 50 years under the Soviets. So who did it benefit? Britain? I don't see how. We entered the war to 'save' a Polish military dictatorship, not unsimilar to the Nazis. We ended the war a a third rate country, having gone into it as one of the worlds foremost powers.
pain wrote:
The most expedient view is this: the longer appeasement continued, the stronger Germany became. Germany and Hitler were just not predictable to policy-makers at the time, even if some speculative counter-factual books think it was all so clear.
I agree with this really, but the end result of declaring war to save Poland was put Poland and half of Europe under the boot of the Russians for 50 years, and destroy this country. End result being I believe we'd have been better not to go to war, or to get out of it in 40, preferably in October 40 when our position was strongest.
pain wrote:
Germany was not pushed into war with Poland by Britain anyway.
Yes it was. Why did we seek to keep Danzig, a German city, under Polish rule, against all logic?
pain wrote:
His generals advised him against it, much like before Prague, when German generals had a clear plan to assasinate Hitler if he invaded, which never came to fruition because of Chamberlain losing his bottle and signing away Czechoslovakia. They saw British involvement as too great a risk, but Hitler only went into Poland because he was so confident that Britain would, as they had done previously, not have the bottle to interfere. He was wrong. I'm sure there are some good quotes about how he shat himself when he heard the war declaration, but I read most of this for exams in the library (not just pinched it all from google) so it would be of great difficulty to track down a lot of specific references.
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Yeah that's all true, but you're missing the point. I believe he wouldn't have gone to war with Poland at all if he'd been given Danzig. The way Britain forced him into war was by convincing the Poles that we would support them in war by the issuance of the War Guarantee, meaning they would make no concessions over Danzig, making war between Poland and Germany inevitable.
Nice debate anyway, summary of my thoughts on ww2:
1. Britain destroyed itself fighting a war it couldn't win.
2. The war was easily avoidable without British diplomatic errors, and Churchill's lust for war with Germany. France and Poland would not have been attacked and beaten.
3. Hitler didn't wish war with Britain. Obviously I can't claim the Germans wouldn't make war on us in the future, but nor can you claim they would. It's all guesswork. Either way Britain came out of the war in a far worse state than it went in.
4. We put half of Europe under the boot of a regime that killed far more people than the Nazis. One that in my opinion was actually more 'evil'.
5. Millions of people died for nothing.
6. The Russians were due to attack the Germans in summer 41. The Germans hit them first.
Are you into the actual military side of ww2? The Eastern Front is my obsession.
