Patrick Buchanan is not the first writer to argue that Hitler wanted no war with Britain, “whose empire he admired and whom he had always sought as an ally.” Other historians have also conceded that the Führer’s great admiration for this island nation, which he never set foot in, is proof positive that no war was inevitable between Nazi Germany and the British Empire. This thesis, however, requires a caveat the size of Texas. It is certainly correct, based on a highly selective gathering of evidence, that Hitler admired Britain. The fact that he admired the English people and heritage, however, does not mean that he understood them. Indeed, his fundamental ignorance of Britain fatefully contributed to war between her and Germany.
Hitler occasionally mused that the British Empire, with its Aryan origins, was the true model for a new German imperium in the conquered territories of the Soviet Union. The Führer was impressed that a small number of British soldiers and administrators could govern hundreds of millions of Indians for over two hundred years. What Hitler refused to take from the British experience, as any student of the Nazi-Soviet war knows all too well, was the twofold British legacy of encouraging the rule of law and responsible government in India; these practices would not be the blessings that the Nazis bestowed upon the peoples of Russia and her border states. Instead, murder and slavery on a mass scale were the Nazi gifts to the victims of Stalin who were unfortunate enough to be “liberated” by Hitler’s legions on the eastern front. British rule in India at least bequeathed to the Hindu majority the preconditions for parliamentary democracy; to say the least, no equivalent claim can be made about the Nazi oppression of the Slavic peoples.
Hitler also failed to understand the power of British public opinion after the Munich betrayal. By this time, a majority of English citizens had grown tired of Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement, and were urging their government to take a tougher stance against Hitler. Had the Führer devoted more study to the nature of English democracy, he would have grasped that his plans to conquer Poland—and not simply take back Danzig, which was a pretext for conquest—would never be tolerated by British (or French) public opinion.
By at least 1937, Hitler also should have known what his relation to Britain would be if he continued with his military build-up as well as his plans to bring the East to heel. In that year, Churchill met with Joachim von Ribbentrop, the German ambassador to Britain. Ribbentrop was exploring, at Hitler’s request, the possibility for a full Anglo-German entente or even an alliance. The conditions of this new agreement, however, were clearly unacceptable to Britain (as well as France). While continually pointing at a map of Central and Eastern Europe, Ribbentrop explained to Churchill that Germany demanded a “free hand” in the East, or Lebensraum for her growing population. Poland, not just Danzig, would be absorbed. Russia, the Baltic states, and the Ukraine would become vassal regimes. If Britain did not interfere with this Nazi conquest of the East, then war would be avoided. Churchill, who was a private member of Parliament at the time, firmly made clear to the ambassador that Britain could never “disinterest herself” in the fortunes of the Continent, nor would she tolerate the Nazi mastery of Eastern Europe and Russia as the price of avoiding war. Yes, Hitler wanted peace, but entirely on his own terms. If he had known anything about the history of Britain, he would have recognized that no English government in history had ever meekly allowed any nation on the Continent such an unprecedented and ominous hegemony.
In retrospect, it is obvious that Ribbentrop’s report to Hitler of this conversation with Churchill did not deter the Führer from pursuing his designs against the East. Despite his admiration for the British Empire of old, Hitler and his henchmen showed contempt for the “decadent” and “bourgeois” Britain which, he believed, had gone soft after a long period of global mastery. (He showed even greater contempt for the resolve and fighting ability of the “plutocratic” Americans.) The young and vital Third Reich would replace this old and decayed kingdom that pathetically lived off of long past glories.
With respect to Britain (and so much else), Hitler was wrong on all counts. Britain’s empire was a force for civilization, not the model of brutal tyranny that Hitler would inflict upon the Soviet peoples. Moreover, Britain was more than a nation of shopkeepers, willing to tolerate Nazi domination of the East. The Führer fatally misunderstood the resolve of the British to resist the designs of Nazi Germany after they were stirred to anger by the Munich betrayal.
Churchill was right: World War 2 was indeed the “unnecessary war,” but not because Britain failed to make peace with an untrustworthy and murderous regime. “There never was a war more easy to stop,” as Churchill well knew, because every western regime with eyes that could see knew what Hitler intended for Europe, and did nothing to stop him until it was too late for millions of his victims.
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Admiration, perhaps; Understanding, never!
Patrick Buchanan is not the first writer to argue that Hitler wanted no war with Britain, “whose empire he admired and whom he had always sought as an ally.” Other historians … [Read More]
Posted by Grant Havers on September 05, 2009
The Usual Suspects