This thread is a bit tantamount to running a thread full of David Icke videos entitled 'Were We Told the Truth about Shape Shifting Reptiles Running Everything?'
Nonetheless, my potted version history of the causes of WWII goes something like:
- 1870 - Franco-Prussian War. France worried about German unification. France lost, including Alsace-Lorraine region. Driven by fear of German Emperor also being asked to run Spain as the automatic successor which would have pincered France and made them deeply uncomfortable. German Emperor is quite arrogant about this.
- 1912 - WWI - another Franco-German war, with France determined to make amends for the Franco-Prussian War losses, particularly Alsace. Allies win this time. Concerns over Prussian militarism etc, Prussia no longer exists as a country after the war. France wins, exacts crippling terms of reparation along with UK etc, possibly partly to maintain Germany in a weakened state. Churchill had converted British Navy to oil, knew oil was in the middle east and Britain didn't have any, took advantage of the war to attack and break up the weakening Ottoman empire so the victors (France and England) could carve up big slices of the middle east as 'spheres of influence' and get the oil. Very convenient.
- 1939. Hitler, the Nazis, et al, with Germany reeling under crippling terms of reparation, had risen during the 1930s trading on the average German's resentment about the conditions they were living under since losing WWI. Promised a lot of victories, an attractive millennial movement (thousand year Reich), etc, as long as everyone was obedient and followed orders. Rise of fascism as an organising political structure which was held to be A Good Thing by many for some reason. Spain, Portugal and Italy also fascist by now. Mussolini like the idea of a resurgent Roman Empire as well, although he didn't want to have to work too hard for it. Strong anti-Semitic feeling already existed throughout Europe - France, Russia, England, Germany, everywhere. Clash of communists and fascists as two extreme organising principles. Jewish ppl associated with communist movements also.
Hitler rearms. Decides he doesn't want to just stop the terms of reparation, he may as well go for broke and take the whole place over and unify Europe under enlightened German rule, from Britain to western Russia, the way it should be. Prague will be the new capital of everything. Annexes German-speaking part of Czechoslovakia under a pretext of reunification. Annexes Austria as well. Goes into Poland. Britain declares war in some concern at this point. Certainly there were machinations afoot with Russia signing a non-aggression treaty at this point and so on. Let's not overlook the alliance of Germany with Japan, who had similar imperialistic ambitions in Asia, with illusions of racial purity and a harsh and strongly militaristic bent, to take over every other Asian country by force and simultaneously get rid of European colonial influence for 'the good of the people'.
As I understand it, Britain pleaded with France to reduce the terms of reparation and stop punishing Germany to the extent they were prior to WWII, but France would have none of it. The original terms of settlement were of the order of paying the equivalent today of $100,000 for every single person killed by Germany in WWI and so on. That was a lot of money to repay, hence leading to the hyper-inflation of the Weimar Republic in the 1930s. ('You want millions of marks? Here's millions of marks.')
Note that ethical thinking seemed to be a bit impoverished up until the fallout of WWII as a turning point -- it was held to be very noble to be in a regiment and go to war, war was seen as a suitable and ethical solution to any diplomatic issue, was normal and natural and good for nations, and the victors frequently looted artworks, statues, jewellery, etc from the losers, and so a lot of artifacts regularly moved around Europe. Europe has had nearly 70 years of relative peace and relative prosperity after happily engaging in ever escalating destructive wars. To some extent the US acted as an experimental control group to demonstrate that a large country with a large population NOT going to war too much would prosper better. At least not going to war with equal opponents.
David Irving's apologetics seem to overlook some rather fierce and ruthless German cultural characteristics of the time, however, of the Prussian military variety. He frequently makes reference to certain cultural differences, then brushes them off. I think these differences were a key part of the problem that he overlooks.
My main points being there was a history of Franco-German hostilities going back a long way, that there was constant tension in Europe between a number of superpowers, that colonialism to a great extent was the result of such competitive pressures, that annihilation was a constant concern, that governments were capricious, whether ruled by hereditary nobles or new republics, that war was seen as a noble and necessary solution to many diplomatic problems, that there was not a well-developed ethics of individual human rights in that context, that this resulted in a kind of Germanic megalomania as an ego defence mechanism from WWI, etc.
In the final analysis, Hitler's ideas for Europe were so great, his intentions so noble, the sacrifice to German people so minimal and his tactics so workable that his own senior officers attempted to kill him over and over again.
That there were machinations about what the outcomes of the war might deliver should come as no surprise -- all the other superpowers had their own agendas -- including limiting the power of Germany as an ongoing potential threat to stability in Europe.
Last edited by
SydneyPSIder on 22 May 2016, 19:37, edited 2 times in total.