“we will always have Hollywood, hamburgers and Coca Cola. At least I hope we do.”

But Taki, you of all people know things don’t always go better with coke.

(Sorry, couldn’t resist… :-)

I absolutely agree with the praise that Taki slyly gives to Farrell’s account of Benito.  Incredibly interesting book dispelling some common misperceptions about the Mussolini era.  Naturally hindsight is tainted by his alliance with Adolf, so he’ll never get a fair shake, especially in an Italy still polarized between two political currents to this day.

“Never mind. Greece was the only European country fighting alongside Britain in October 1940, and the only one to give a good account of itself, but you wouldn’t know it from the coverage we usually get”

Very true.  I think part of the reason for the lack of coverage was Britain’s concern to puff up France’s minimal resistance, a myth that still endures.

Greece fought far more fiercely than France (admittedly even the French defeated the Italian attack on them).
Equally, after the defeat of Greece and France the Greek partisans were ferocious and tied down a lot of German strength, whereas the Germans regarded France as a vacation resort.  The anecdotal accounts in eg the Sven Hassel WW2 pulp novels are instructive in this regard - Greece depicted as a terrifying land of throat-slitters, France as a peaceful place of warmly welcoming ladies, as much an ally as an occupied country.

Benito’s advice to the fuerer was well poised and accurate in the specific case of the Maltese factor. However who conjured up in Benito’s mind the greek maladventure ? It was a disaster to enter greece, and the greek adventure was benito’s begining of the end.

The Mussolinian invasion of Greece remains one of the most riddlesome connundrums in WW2. On an ideological plane both governments were sympathetic with each other. The invasion of Greece would not have helped the Italian’s mediterranean designs one iota. Mussolini and Italy would have been better served had he ( instead of profering sound advice to Adolf, Musolini should have heeded his own advice ) launched his navy and military in the conquest of Malta, instead of foraging into Greece. The misguided invasion was a loss for both Italy and Greece. It brought the English into mainland Greece, after the death of Metaxas, and later on impelled the German invasion, which brought harsh suffering to Greece. Without the English on Greek soil, Greece would have dealt with the italians successfully and the Germans would not have intervened. The question will remain whether or not Metaxas was murdered by the British. Metaxas rejected British military presence on the mainland. With Metaxas gone, the British poured in their soldiers into Greece, forcing the the German reaction.  The English placed a naval embargo on shipping and traffic into Greece, thus precipitating the horrendous famine of 1941. The occupying germans were able to bring the situation to normalcy later in 1942-43. What did Greece get in exchange for her siding with the allies ? Peanuts. They only got the Dodecanese,from the italians, but not Cyprus. The correct price to be exacted would have been the Dodecanese and Cyprus . Too much blood was invested for very little in exchange. In contrast the lazy turks sat the war on the side lines and for their fence sitting were rewarded by the allies in 1960 and 1974 with a slice of “Cyprus”. The perfidy of politics.

We can not be guaranteed that Hollywood will be around when the american empire cracks up . In any case, with a surfeit of filth and degenerate productions emanating from Hollywood, it will not be missed. Hollywood is the epitome of the american empire. “His master’s voice”. As far as hamburgers is concerned I would rather starve than put one of those grease pads in my mouth. A substitute for Coca cola can always be found, maybe Bin-cola or Tali-cola, or even better with plain Dortmunder beer.

@zico

While we may not regret the passing of coca-cola
I am afraid that an Islamic victory might mean no
more beer, as they are against alcoholic beverages.

And that would be a tragedy beyond words.

(By the way, at the latest Chesteron conference, beer
and wine were free, but if you wanted water you had
to pay, the theory was that if you drank water with
so much good wine and beer you were daft anyway).

I wonder what would have happened if the “Stresa Front”
with England and Italy in alliance, had lasted beyond
Mussolinis’s foolhardy (but understandable) Ethiopian
venture? Indeed, my understanding is that Churchill’s
correspondence with “Il Duce” has been sealed (and
apparently wrote to him up to almost the last; in
many letters he apparently praised him).

Alas, I’ve never forgiven the Savoyards for destroying
the Kingdom of Due Sicilie (1861)and seizing the Papal
States (1870). Naples, prior to the forced union with
Piedmont, was a thriving kingdom with a rich cultural
and artistic life (e.g., Rossini, Donizetti, Mercadante,
and many others). Absorption by the new “liberal”
state of Italy ended that. During the 1860s the
peasants of the Puglia and Calabria rose up in
rebellion against enforced 19th c. liberalism and
in favor of the deposed Bourbons (King Francesco II
and his gallant Queen Sofia)--the bringadaccio {sp?}.
Southern Italy--the Kindgom of the Two Sicilies--
has suffered ever since. Sir Harold Acton’s delightful;
volumes, THE BOURBONS OF NAPLES and THE LAST BOURBONS
OF NAPLES are superb histories of that epoch.

Viva il Re de Due Sicilia!

Turkey in the 40s was surrounded by enemies. The the northwest, the Germans eager to put their Berlin-to-Baghdad Railway under their direct control, and to use as a means to ship oil. To the west a nation with irredentist intentions after the 1922 war. To the north and south there were Russia, Britain (in Palestine and Iraq), and France )in Syria and Lebanon). These three European powers had longtime plans to control the Dardanelles.  To call the Turk’s prudent response to this encirclement “lazy” is quite odd.  “Lazy” would be news to the Gallipoli vets.

I suspect that in 1974 the Great Powers did not “reward” their loyal NATO ally Turkey when she took, rightly or wrongly, what she regarded to be her Alsace.  Given the tenor of anti-Turkish feeling in the Balkans, the real eastern Europe, and in Near East, Turkey may have had good reasons to fear genocide in Cyprus. Instead, the NATO powers knew of Cold War tensions with respect to Russian ambitions, and they needed bases in Turkey to launch a rear front if the Russians attacked in Europe. Also Greece in 1974 was under control of a distasteful regime.  “Perfidy” should be made of sterner stuff, or baser motives.

For the young men of the US to die for the interests of Zionist nationalists is repugnant.  For US foreign policy to serve the nationalist ambitions of the Serbian Black Hand is equally so.  So also Albanian irredentism and expansionism.

Taki’s knowledge leaves a bit to be desired.
Gilmour is absolutely right that Ethiopians defeated Italians in their first attempt to occupy that country.
(There were two Ethiopian Wars)
What Taki missed is the most outstanding event in that war. Ethiopians captured thousands ( by some accounts 16,000) of Italians and castrated many officers, among them the Mussolini’s famous Marshal Graziani. So Italians went into Greece without “coglioni”, expecting perhaps a “cakewalk” and got into a waspnest. In Balkans they don’t respect the Marques of Queensbury rules. When their governments capitulate the people go on fighting in a nasty way. It is a belief that honor requires not to accept meekly submission to the invader. In this, their mentality is much closer to the Iraqis than to the West.

A number of years ago I read a book called The Italians by the late Luigi Barzini. He explained the conundrum mentioned by Mr. T; namely, how the Italians can be so personally tough but such poor soldiers. The typical Italian’s loyalties shrink as the distance to the object of loyalty increases. One is true-blue to family, then city, then region with perhaps a little left over for country. In addition, Italian armies tend to be poorly led. Barzini comments acidly that the typical Italian would not dream of putting his life in the hands of an incompetent surgeon but thinks nothing of putting his country’s life in the hands of incompetent generals!

Well, I can’t refrain from adding a couple of points: the Italians did well when they truly disliked their foe --- witness their splendid record against the reds in Spain (during the Civil War) and on the Eastern Front against the SOviets. They even gave better then they got against the Japanese in Tientsin in 1943 (admittedly they were woefully outnumbered). Of course, at that time they also did far better against the Germans then their being outmanoeuvred and outgunned would have suggested. But I do agree --- the Risorgimento created a country with some basic fault-lines badly papered over.

I must also add that had the British, French, and Italians backed the Greeks and the new Armenian government against Ataturk, Greece, Armenia (and maybe even Turlkeyy) would be a lot better off to0day (as would the British, French, and Italians).

@ Mr. Earley

Your correction is well taken. I could be completely wrong, reminescing from the times when I heard Italian soldiers telling us that Graziani was “ il Maresciale senza coglioni”.
Italians, when motivated, are excellent fighters. Those who participated in guerrilas (mostly Communist) in the Balkans were superb guerrilleros.
Of course, as Luigi Brazini explains, they are not normally inclined to risk their lives for some abstract common causes.

D’Annunzio - My personal favorite in the entire world of literature (’The Virgins of the Rocks’ and ‘The Flame’ tie as his best).
A real gift to me to see these odes - you never fail.
Looks like the City of Fire is alive and well!
See you in D.C. champion.

I beleive that it is time for a reappraisal of Mussolini,
if nothing else to clear him of the charge of having
destroyed democracy in Italy.

History Lesson no. 4457:

Fascism did not destroy democracy, the collapse of
democracy from its own internal contradictions brought
about all sorts of authoritarian regimes, of which Fascims
was one, and not the most common. You might as well
blame the vultures for having killed the deer whose
carcass they are feasting on.

History lesson no. 5687:

Fascism was not the same as Nazism. It was only the
hazards of international politcis that made Mussonlin
ally himself with Hitler. Had he gone the other way,
he would now be a respected historical figure and
Fascism a reasonable political alternative.

(time to tout my alternative history novel where such
thing happened, when someone asks “what is the difference
between a Fenian and a Fascist?” “Wiser choice of
allies” (Ireland having been part of the Axis in my
novel))

As long as we pour venom on Mussolini we will never
understand the nature of democracy’s contradictions
and how they can come to a head

(By the way, all of you FDR’s haters, if you hate
democracy too, then you are being consequent, but if
not, it was he who kept democracy from collapsing and
a real dictatorial regime coming into power).

@ Charles A. Coulombes
Italian performance as fighters in the Spanish Civil War on the side of Franco ,is at best -mixed.
Around Malaga it was quite good. Later on it was nothing short of catastrophic. I heard myself on Spanish TV, the Red and the Blue commanders discussing the battle of Guadalajara. Both agreed that Italians were running like rabbits opening a dangerous breach in Nationalist’s lines. They were such a laughing stock for both sides that Mussolini got miffed and order them home.
An explanation could be that the first contingent (Malaga) was made of real fascists while the latter(more numerous) of rabble il Duce collected from the streets when he run out of his ‘arditi’.

Adriana’s right that Naziism and Fascism ain’t the same.

Naziism is just an extremest form of nationalism and racialism. The State, for ol’ Adi, was just the servant of the Volk and the Nation. And the State needed only to “purify” and “purge” the Volk of putative “unclean” races.

For Benito, Italy wasn’t a nation but a collection of city states that all hated each other (it still is). Italian unification in 1870 had not produced a nation or a single Volk.  So the State, for Fascism, comes first, and it, with a fist and a jackboot, would make a nation. John Lukac’s is good on this in his latest book on “populism”.

Both Fascism and Naziism believe in a violent revolution led by militarized Brownshirts when, afterwards, Phoenix-like, out of the ashes the purified and united Nation-Volk would emerge.  See Roger Griffin’s work on this. Both celebrate the Duce-principle and the enlightened party.  Both loved socialism. Both hated capitalism, the bourgeoisie, the titled nobility, civil and human rights, etc. For both the individual person is nothing: the race, the nation, the state is all.

To say the very least, all such views are and should be anathema to Real Conservatism’s faith in long organic development through history and a loathing of all revolutions.

@ Adriana
I happen to be one of those haters of FDR and not terribly enthsiastic about Democracy as political system (lately,it produces only Bushes and Clintons and deadly hypocrisy). Prefer a semi authoritorian system like Putin’s.
I agree that Mussolini should be re-evaluated, so will be Franco. But what about Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera’s ideology? Is it unfortunate that this noble man never ruled Spain -instead of Franco?

As we re-evaluate ol’ Benito, let’s be sure to survey the Ethiopians.

@Peter

As I said, if you do not like democracy, then
you are consistent. My beef is with those
who approve of democracy but have no gratitude
to the ones who preserved it for them.

As for Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, please don’t
make me start. He is one of my heroes.

But as for his chances of forming Governmetn, I am
not very hopeful. He was too young, and had yet to
learn some important and bitter lessons. He was,
to my view, a Malraux in search of a De Gaulle, or
a Sean Lemass forced to be his own de Valera.

@Sid

of course, let’s survey the Ethiopians.

But as far as I can tell, no one who celebrates
Churchill asks the Kurds that he ordered gassed,
nor the Indians that he let die in the famine of 1943.

The fact is that colonialism was full of cruelty and
injustice, and it is a little late to remember it when
dealing with Benito.

For that matter, the worst offender was Belgium, under
Leopold II, but that did not keep the Allies to weep
over “poor little Belgiun” in WWI.

Good old Churchhill, he gave us Iraq and Israel when he was colonial secretary.He liked to use bombs and poison gas in Iraq,no wonder he is such a hero to the neocons.

And Winnie was more responsible than anyone for getting rid of Fascism and Naziism.  The Browns will never forgive him for that.

“In contrast the lazy turks sat the war on the side lines and for their fence sitting were rewarded by the allies in 1960 and 1974 with a slice of “Cyprus”. The perfidy of politics.”

Well said, Eurylochus, though the perfidy began even earlier--not 1974, not 1960, but straight after WWII, when the Brits had tried to give the Dodecanese to the Turks, who not only did not fight in WWII, but were quietly inclined toward Germany. When Stalin said, “No, Greece fought, Greece gets,” the Brits, miffed, then lobbied to have the islands demilitarized.  Of all the allies a country could ever wish for, surely the Brits would have to be the worst--a true curse to any nation that enters into alliance with her. Greece should never have allowed those treacherous vermin on Greek soil in WWII. Taki is so wrong to hail this monumental error.

To “Lysander”: I see you show much concerned for supposed Turkish fear of “genocide in Cyprus.” A pointer; in this dispute it was the Turks who began the campaigns of genocide. I refer to the genocidal Pogrom of 1955 against the Istanbul Greeks. Like with the Armenian Genocide, no one let out a peep. Least of all Britain, who did everything to draw attention from it.

And in this attempt to stave off a “feared” “genocide,” the Turks unleashed yet another genocide when they ethnic cleansed the top part of Cyprus of its inhabitants. You seem to diplay nothing but understanding for all this.

@Sid

Indeed, they will never forgive Churchill for saving
democracy, nor FDR, for that matter.

But at least they are consistent. Worse are people
like Paul Johnson who excoriates FDR and praises
his Republicans opponents forgetting that had his
Republicans opponents won over FDR,t he’d be speaking
German by now.

But still, there is some need to bring some perspective
to old Benito, if nothing else to get his context right.
Getting the context right is one of the fundamental
tasks of the historian to prevent all sorts of
anacronisms, or, as John Lukacs says, to avoid
projecting into the past the preocupations of the
present.

Adriana: no problem with your last comment.

conceptual: nationalists, no matter what nation, gladly practice genocide, and you are right to point this out.

“conceptual: nationalists, no matter what nation, gladly practice genocide, and you are right to point this out.” - Sid Cundiff

And that includes such anglo-american nationalists as Churchill and FDR.  Interesting how this aggressive, militarist, globe-devouring nationalism always gets a pass from the self-proclaimed anti-nationalists.

@Kirt

Make up your mind. Do you think that it is a good thing
that Hitler was rid of?

If not, then feel free to blast Churchill and FDR.

If so, how else would you have gotten rid of it? By
your purity of heart? By prayers? By extraterrestrial
intervention?

Like it or not, it was those two, with their ally Stalin,
whom they accepted on the grounds that you should not
look a gift horse in the mouth, who did the job, a job
of which you are a beneficiary.

Was Hitler the greater or lesser evil?  I don’t know for sure, but certainly the body count he racked up was less than that of his enemies - indeed less than that of Stalin alone. Nor can I be sure that Hitler’s defeat was of any net benefit to me.  You can spin these “what if” speculations in any desired direction to fit your ideology. But certainly I can be glad that the world was rid of Hitler and also be sorry that it was not rid of Churchill, FDR and Stalin at a much earlier point.

But my point was that as a genuine anti-nationalist, I am most opposed to the nationalism of the US, my own country, which now menaces the entire world.  It’s easy to oppose the nationalism of other countries - in fact nationalists always tend to oppose the nationalism of others except when they are allies - and often not even then.

@Kirt

Your position “I am glad that Hitler is gone and I
wish that Chruchill, FRD, and Stalin had been gone too”
reminds me of the wisdom of the German communists when
asked about the question of the Ruhr.

There was a plesbicite as to the Ruhr would be reunited
with Germany, annexed to another country, or kept under
international control. By then Germany was Nazi.

So, when the Communists asked how to vote, the were
told in Sybilline fashion “Vote for a Red Ruhr in a Red
Germany” Not a very helpful answer in those circumstancies.

And you are also positing as desirable an event that
would take non-Euclidian geometry to obtain....

(The episode I got from Koestler’s memoirs)

Hitler,Stalin,Churchhill, FDR, and Mussolini were all mass murderers. Its just a question of numbers between them.

FDR and Churchill were not content with getting rid of Hitler and the NS regime -they wanted to destroy Germany. Thus the Unconditional Surrender policy and the shameful attitude towards Canaris and the rest of the German opposition to Hitler.
The historical record is clear:
http://www.culturewars.com/CultureWars/Archives/cw_recent/warcrime.html

Right expat,they wanted to destroy Germany and her people with Unconditional Surrender and the the Morganthu Plan.

@ Kirt
There wasn’t much to choose among the WWII leaders.
Roosewelt was a sick man under the spell of his Rasputin, Henry Morgenthau. Churchill was obviously a crook (a ‘booky’, as Malcholm Muggerage would call him.)
Salin was an authentic mass-murderer, and Hitler, as Vladimir Bukovsky said ‘ was a smaller tyrant in the epoch of Stalin.

@expat:

What is your point? That Churchill and FDR were wrong to
ask for inconditional surrender? Yes, they were.

That they were wrong to fight the war at all?  Nope, that’s
not right.

The point is that they were mass murderers and criminals, who threw away any victorty by giving Stalin the fruits of that victory.

Regarding Italian military prowess, which has been considerably derided
by Taki and respondents, consider the following from Sir John Keegan in
his book, The First World War, 1998.  On “The [WWI] Caporetto disaster
[which Keegan blames primarily on the Italian commander] lost the Italian
army its reputation, which it failed to regain during the Second World War.
Gibes at the military qualities of the Italians have been commonly and
cheaply made ever since.  Unfairly; the Italians of the Renaissance city=
states had been notable soldiers, the Venetians an imperial people whose
galleys and fortresses had defied the Ottoman Turks for 300 years.  The
Kingdom of Savoy had fought doughtily for national independence and
unification against Habsburg power and battled as equals beside the French
and British in the Crimea.  It was only after unification that Italy’s
military troubles began (p. 344)” Concerning the post-unification
World War I performance, Keegan writes on page 227, “Hopeless attacks
[by the Italian army] were renewed, heavy losses accepted with an
abnegation as remarkable as that of the British on the Somme or the
French at Verdun.  Indeed, given the uniquely impenetrable nature of
the front the Italian army was set to attack, its early display of self-
sacrifice may be thought unparalleled by any other.”

@jack

You are asking the wrong question.

Suppose that you are drowning and you see a man approaching
the shore.

What will you ask yourself then?

Is this man upright enough to deserve the honor of saving me?

Or

Is this man going to throw me a rope?

At that time democracy and Western civilization badly
needed rescuing. The ones who threw the rope were Churchill,
FDR and Stalin.

Unless you preferred to drown, you have to acknowledge that
they saved your ass and leave it at that.

Adriana you must be joking Stalin a savior of the west.Hitler, Stalin,Roosevelt and Churchill were all mass murderers, nobody won this war.

@ Jack

Of course, Stalin saved democracy (whatever that means lately). He didn’t have any choice, since Hitler attacked him first.
West is excellent in praising its military valor but who rally broke the backbone of Nazism were the Russians. Yes, it was Stalin who led them into the battle.
What is more, if we like to hear the truth, the battles the Russians waged, such as those of Kursk and Stalingrad, for exemple, were far more decisive for the outcome of the War, compared to which those of Montgomery and Rommel were mere scarmouches.
Thuth often does look like a scarecraw.

@jack,

how else, pray, do we still have a Western Civilization,
tattered as it is?

Divine intervention?

@PeterRV

Yep. I advice you getting Alexander Groth’s “Democracies
against Hitler” to show how weak and inept they were to
defend themselves, and how it was the stroke of luck that
made Hitler invade Russia that saved them.

Adriana with all respect, Hitler was never a threat to democracy here and he offered England a peace treaty in 1940 that was no threat to England either and was the only way european Jews could have been saved. The Jews would have had to leave europe but England had a huge empire that could have used their talents.John Charmely wrote a good book about it.Hitler was no more evil than our dear ally Uncle Joe Stalin and no more a threat to democracy.

@jack

Considering Hitler’s unwillingness to abide
by previous treaties and his willingness to
invade neutral countries without a declaratin
of war, I doubt very much that the treaty
offered in 1940 would have helped any.

@jack,

continued

Chamberlain had believed Hitler in the previous
treaty which provided “peace in our time”. Czeckoslovakia
was delivered to Hitler, and instead of “peace in our
time” what they got were more demands.  By that time,
no one believed in Hitler’s promises.

As for Stalin, the point was not that he was less evil, but
that he knew when to stop, which made him infinitely preferable
to Hitler.

@ Adriana

.. he (Stalin)knew when (you meant to say ‘where’?) to stop, which made him infinitely preferable to Hitler.
‘Preferably’, could be argued but, ‘infinitely’, if you are a Slav,absolutely not. Hitler lasted only 12 years ( most of which he wasn’t in Slav lands). Stalin, lasted about 40 exterminating half of Russia and Ucraina.
(That Stalin was preferable, only the Jews can agree on).

That Hitler lasted only eleven years was only due to Stalin
defeating him. If it had been the other way, he might
have lasted as long as Stalin, and created a lot more corpses
than Stalin did (after all, Stalin might oppress Slavs, but
Hitler was the one for whom they were sub-human).  The
choice is not 11 years of Hitler vs. 40 years of Stalin,but
40 years of Hitler vs. 40 years of Stalin.

As for “infinitely” I means that it was possible to have a
normal diplomatic relationship, with give and take, knowing
that there are boundaries not to be crossed. He was a cruel,
crafty, ruthless chieftain, but he knew when not to push his
luck.

@ Adriana

Beg to disagree.
Even defeating Russia, Hitler could have never controlled it like Stalin. In fact, that would have been his end by a different process. Russians are too fiercely nationalistic to accept Hitler’s German spremacist ranting.
As I said elsewhere ,in the East, it is much easier to defeat the Government ( usually a ‘cakewalk’)than its People. Just look at what is happening in Iraq, Slavs are very much the same.

He may not have controlled it like Stalin but he could

a) lie waste to it

b) colonize it with a German population and get rid of any
inhabitants which made trouble.

It does not strain the imagination to see him apply to
the Russians the same methods than he used on the Jews.

The possibility of a happy ending there was very small.

The only differnece is that not only he would be doing it
to Eastern Europe, but also to Western. And then you could
kiss Western Civilization goodbye.

Adriana again with all due respect, Hitler and Stalin were partners in starting the war, to reward a criminal like him with all the fruits of victory shows the insanity of Churchill and Roosevelt.

@ Adriana

You seem to be confusing Hitler’s plan for Russia in case of victory(I tend to agree with you on that) with what would be the reality of the occupation of Russia- what I am talking about.
Also, the parallel of Jews and Russians, as victorious Hitler’s victims, would be wrong.
Jewish defense was based on money and when this was taken away, they were left defenseless. Russian defense would have been- arms.

@ Peter, “(That Stalin was preferable, only the Jews can agree on).”

The Russians in the Red Army sure as hell didn’t agree on it.  Go tell it to some of my Russian friends who actually lived through the siege of Leningrad.  Tell it to their sons and grandsons and you’ll be digesting your own teeth for a month.

@jack

No, to reward Stalin at the end of war shows the burden
of Necessity, which Burke knew well.

@Peter

The Russians did not think that Hitler was preferable to
Stalin. Originally they did so, greeting the Germans as
liberators (they had left a good memory in WW I) with
flowers and everything.

A few months of Nazi rule and they decided that Stalin was
the lesser evil.

QED

@ John Ball (’you will be digesting your own teeth for a month’)

Now John, you really have violent wishes for me.

BTW,your Leningrad-siege friends, was one of them called Kevin ?

As the IRA scum (infamous sympathisers and collaborators with the Nazis) say, “it’s nothing personal”, but yes I do have violent wishes for all Nazi apologists, although I’ll leave it to the rule of law to deal with them like it dealt with David Irving.

This endemic fantasy the Nazi apologists have of Hitler somehow being a misunderstood German patriot who had reasonable and relatively benign intentions for Europe, reminds me of the classic Mel Brooks’ song and dance number, “Springtime for Hitler”, here:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=JyUbRPv-BM8

@ John Ball
You dont seem to care what the arguments are all about, just love any excuse to pour out your neurotic indignation and insults.
Let me remind you that Hitler is dead and his corpse burnt, and your heroic anti-Nazism comes seventy years late.

@ Peter, “Let me remind you that Hitler is dead and his corpse burnt”

That was a good start.  But it’s disingenuous to pretend that what Hitler represented ended in 1945.

And I do care “what the arguments are all about”, but lies (and even worse, half-truths) are not arguments.  The Nazi apologist David Irving’s lies were not “arguments”.  And your vicious statement that “only the Jews” would agree Stalin was preferable to Hitler, isn’t an argument; it’s just verbal feces.

And here’s another lie you told - a lie ensconced in the context of your phrase:
“neurotic indignation.” Pray tell, what is “neurotic” about being indignant toward Hitler’s invasion of Russia?  Once again, I dare you to tell any Russian who experienced that invasion that their continuing indignation is “neurotic.”

I see where you’re coming from, Peter.  Your wish is to trivialise Hitler’s extraordinary evil, and thereby to lay a foundation for the rehabilitation and renewed public respectability of your fever-swamp of antisemitism and, more importantly, your populist-nationalist hack-opportunism which ought to have been buried with the corpse of Father Coughlin and the German-American Bund - and I hope someday they’ll take their IRA sympathisers with them into the dustbin of history.

@ John Ball

You are obviously in your neurotic mode trying to classify me in some category, for which you have ready available assault verbiage.
‘That Stalin was preferable, only Jews can agree on’.
Of course- and if your indignation permits you to accept- for very obvious reasons.
As for Slavs, there wasn’t such a unanimity. Only in Ucraina, Stalin has caused death of millions by staravation and deportations which has caused many to join even SS-troops (in Bielorussia also). There was also Vlasov’s Army that fought along Whermacht.
This is what was under discussion, this time, and not how much we hate the badies and love the goodies.
So, if you find any inacurracy in what I say, calm down and tell me all about it, but don’t come with this ‘I know where you are coming from’, because you know nothing about where I come from, and besides, that’s irrelevant.
On the other hand,what is obvious is- you are a Jew.

Peter said to me:  “On the other hand,what is obvious is- you are a Jew.”

Now, Peter, you’ve made an ass of yourself.

I was baptised in the Roman Catholic Church of St Mary in Schwenksville, Pennsylvania, in March 1963, when I was around six weeks old.  My confirmation was at St Philip Neri Roman Catholic Church in Pennsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1976.

I trace my paternal line back to Moses Ball, the Master Cobbler, baptised in the Church of England in Bradford (Yorkshire) in 1786, and to his ancestor Joseph Ball, the brother of Mary Ball, George Washington’s mother.

Tracing my maternal line from mother to mother, I am the great-great-grandson of (Catholic) Anna Camarata of Sicily.  So, I am not “a Jew” even by strict Rabbinic criteria.

I do, however, have some remote Jewish ancestors who converted to Christianity in Berlin in the 1800s.  If that makes me “a Jew”, then I’d rather be “a Jew” than claim the slightest resemblance with you, Peter.

“What is obvious is, you are a Jew,” so you said to me.  Even if it were so, WHAT THE F--- WOULD IT MATTER, except to subhuman creeps like you?

@ John Ball
The reason I thought you were a Jew was because you are reacting as though you were one. Sorry, but that shouldn’t be an offense to you, should it? Finally, we agree on something i.e. that
it is irrelevant for discussion (along with the ‘place’ you knew ‘I was coming from’).
Now, back to the ‘controversy’ without beating around the bush, what was your other objection to my last posting?
I’d love to know your answer.

@Peter

It is always a bad form to ask of anyone “Are
you a Jew” (or “an Irishman” for that matter)
when debating, instead of addressing the argument.

A statement is either true or false, and the
motives of the person saying it are irrelevant.

When you asked John if he was a Jew, you said that
his arguments did not matter, only his reasons for
advancing them.

That is extremely bad form in a debate.

@ Adriana

If you would take time to read my postings (and John Ball’s answers)you’d understand why I asked him that question. I couldn’t understand his fury over my statement : ‘That Stalin was preferable, only Jews can agree on’.
Where is the reason for all insults and swears I have received?
If you don’t want to read them, why do you bother to give me lessons on good debating?

@Peter

because the statement “only Jews can agree that Stalin
was preferable” is gratuituosly insulting, as if you needed
to belong to a certain group to find good points about
Uncle Joe, or if such and opinion was biased, and you needed
to have a prior bias to agree to it.

Jews were not the only ones with good reasons to prefer
Stalin to Hitler, so did gypsies, for taht matter. The
original plan of Hitler for Poland was to reduce them to
a servile class without any education, and to promote
abortion to disminish their numbers.  Horrible as life
under communism was, it still provided educationm and the
Universtities did not close. In any case, Pope John Paul
II settled the question when he beatified Polish martyrs,
killed for “hartred of the faith” by the Nazis. Of course,
they will get around to beatifying martyrs killed by the
Communists, but Wotjyla could tell you if Hitler was
preferable to Stalin or not.

You could also prefer Stalin to Hitler on geopolitical grounds,
that Stalin was likely to make less trouble than Hitler would.
That Stalin could only expand trhough Latin America through
left wing parties, but Hitler could do so through the military
or that Stalin would make more prudent use of the atomic bomb
than Hitler would.

You do not need to be Jewish to take these things into
consideration.

@ Adriana

Strange that even you dont want to understand that what the statement clearly means is, that, given the treatement they received by Hitler,
the Jews would have been damned fools not to prefer Stalin.
(Of course, I could have added gypsies, homosexuals, physically and mentally handicapped , Hitler’s political oponents etc, etc and make the sentence longer and boring, and to what other purpose?)
I would also repeat that only a damned ignorant wouldn’t recognize that the situation of Slavs was different- many took a chance to collaborate out of hatred for Stalin.
What was so offensive here for a good catholic boy to produce so many insults and hatred.
( since Catholics have not been mentioned I thought Ball a Jew
so what kind of horror was that?)

@Peter

I guess that we manage to miscomunicate and get heated up,
but I think I mentioned about the Russians that they were
quite happy to be invaded by the Germans, and treated them
as liberators.

It was after they knew what life under Hitler was that a lot
of them decided that they’d rather take Stalin. So, it was
quite a good demonstration, experimentally-wise.

Of course Slavs in other countries had their reasons to
prefer communism, like the Serbs who were mass murdered by
the Ustace Croats for not being Catholic. For them, Tito’s
regime was quite welcome. (and sadly now they lament no
longer living in peaceful Titoist Yugoslava).

@ Adriana

Serbs didn’t quite wellcome communism, as you believe, they paid an enormous price accepting it, but let’s leave that for some other time.

@Peter

Serbs were not that happy with Communism, but they thought
it an improvement over Catholic Ustace rule.

Same as Cambodians found a Vietnamese occupation a great
improvement over Khmer Rouge rule.

er… a few comments from the spanish side - as I belive there´s no spaniard in this most interesting forum (been enjoying it for a while now, first class commentators & discussions)and thought it fit (as we have “the greek"," the german” etc) to have “the crazy spaniard” too - I must apologize for my rusty english, though.

About Italian warring skills: They are too old, too smart a people to do hardcore figthing for things they don´t believe. Beyond his borders I would never trust my back to a italian - as I´d do to a german, ruski or greek… Having said that, taken as single warriors they are always top class.

About Primo de Rivera he was too idealist to be managing real things.
Though he might be the best, well prepared, all rounded, spiritualized would-to-be leader in spanish history. A great man all in all.

As for WWII, truth is( Hollywood propaganda aside) that the “real thing” was the east front (American & Brits fights being just skirmish compared to the colosal conflagration staged on the Great Plain). Thank God Hitler, notwithstandind his extraordinary, mindblowing abilities was so fool as to mess with the ruskies in their own land. Bad move Adolf! You dig your own grave with diective n.13 ( the famous comissar order) Pity the Allies High Comand didn´t listen to Patton and finish the job.

Greetings

Pd: Adrianna, with all due respect, I dont know whether you are blond or brunette, rich or poor, fat or skinny, old or young… but i´d marry you with my ewyes wide shut. Just give me a place and a date and i´d be there :)

Rommel said of the Italian troops in North Africa that many of the enlisted men were good with training but they were poorly led by a mostly soft effete officer class who despised their own men and spent their time living as easily as possible. Little wonder the men left their posts as the officers abandoned them fleeing by car as fast as they could get the batman to drive. When led by committed officers the italians apparently did fight well.