Russell Seitz

May 09, 2008

Taki writes in The Truth About The Good War of

“the madness that gripped Versailles, a vengeful spirit that alienated America, mutilated Germany”

But it did as much to motivate as mutilate-  everything from ‘rocket clubs’ to the freikorps. In the inter-war years German enthusiasm for military technology blossomed as the economy recovered from the hyperinflationary catastrophe brought on by Versailles.

Before the historical argument boils over, recall that both sides were aware of an accelerating revolution in military affairs. Weapons of mass destruction were being actively developed on both sides, and neither wanted to see the other develop and deploy them to crushing advantage.

The Nazi’s had the lead in nerve gas and missiles to deliver it, and it must not be forgotten that the splitting of the uranium atom was discovered in Berlin.

The rush to war, for whatever constellation of historical reasons, imposed military priorities that disrupted German developments from jet aircraft and trans-channel guns to ICBM’s, and accelerated such great undertakings as the Manhattan Project. All these developments re-emerged as components of the technological stalemate of the Cold War, after Russia and its erstwhile allies helped themselves to the techno-loot in 1945.

Had Churchill not prevailed on Roosevelt to override the America First movement,  a longer peace might have led to an even more violent war.