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Who Started WWII?

Discussion in 'History Forum' started by Dr. Bob, Sep 13, 2003.

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  1. Dr. Bob

    Dr. Bob Administrator
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    I just completed reading some primary source material from German enlisted men (NOT officers or typical spokesmen) on WHY they fought. These are the survivors, mostly in their 70-80s now.

    Germany was plundered after WWI, with huge German minorities now under control in Poland, Czechoslavakia, Austria, France. They were abused and discrimated against.

    So Germany, as Hitler took control, began to help liberate these persecuted groups. Got the nations (and big backers like England and France) to help in returning these groups to German control.

    Sudetenland
    Czechoslovakia
    Austria

    No resistance. No intervention by the big powers.

    Finally, Sept 1, 1939 German troops marched into Poland to liberate their countrymen. It was not until Sept 3 that England and France declared war on Germany. They were astounded! They assumed they were just liberating their countrymen.

    Only THEN did Germany declared war on them. So WWII was NOT Germany's fault!

    Anyone ever heard that logic before? I was absolutely stunned.
     
    #1 Dr. Bob, Sep 13, 2003
  2. Major B

    Major B <img src=/6069.jpg>

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    Yes. I lived in Germany for three years, 1984-1987, and there were not a few Germans who believed such things. I remember watching "Casablanca" on GERMAN TV (dubbed over with German voices) in my friend "Hans'" house. Hans was SDP (Social Democrat), and his wife was a Green Party member (so we are talking LIBERALS here.

    Anyway, when the famous barroom scene happens, with the German soldiers singing "Wacht Am Rhein" being drowned out by the French singing "Le Marsiallaise (excuse spelling), My friend Hans began making vulgar gestures at the TV and saying quite choice things about the French. Before the French started singing, Hans was singing along with the Nazi soldiers, "Vaterland, mein vaterland.."

    I have a private opinion that inside each German man's house is a secret closet with a spear, a shield, a sword, and a big hairy hat shaped like a bullet with two horns coming out the side of the hat, and that they are just waiting for one more opportunity...
     
    #2 Major B, Sep 13, 2003
  3. rsr

    rsr <b> 7,000 posts club</b>
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    Sure. But remember that this was a generation constantly barraged by Hitler's propaganda machine, one that preached that Germany lost the last war because it was stabbed in the back by the Jews. Anyone who disputed Nazi claims was silenced — communists, socialists, democrats, Christians — by execution, imprisonment or intimidation.

    While the Germans certainly had cause for grievance because of loss of territory and the heavy reparations, it had set the precedent in the Franco-Prussian War. Prussia, against Bismarck's advice, had forced heavy reparations on France and demanded Alsace and Lorraine. In Strasbourg, the textbooks told students that "Meine Heime ist Frankreich" (rusty on the German) — "My home is Germany," even though they spoke French.

    Certainly, much of Poland was formerly Prussian, although Prussia had acquired much of the territory through successive partitions and annexations of Poland.

    Germany never had any legal claims to the Sudetenland or Austria, no claim whatsoever to the Slavic areas of Czechoslovakia. Germany had no intentions of being satisfied with formerly German areas of Poland; the partition with the U.S.S.R. was just a breather. (Funny, that; the Soviet Union had lent invaluable assistance to the secret re-armament of Germany, which began under the Weimar Republic, by supplying weapons test ranges outlawed by the Treaty of Versailles.)

    The causes of war are always rooted in eons of history and hotly disputed. Everyone has a grudge that can be justified by citing some wrong (or perceived wrong) in the past. Native Americans have grievances against the U.S. government; anti-Americanism was long ingrained in Mexico because of the Mexican-American War.

    The Nazis — not necessarily ordinary Germans — not only wanted land, they also wanted the elimination of the Jews and (probably) the subhuman Slavs. Wars of ideology are particularly fierce.

    Just some ramblings.
     
    #3 rsr, Sep 13, 2003
  4. Jim1999

    Jim1999 <img src =/Jim1999.jpg>

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    "I am the man who started the war. An incredible claim? Be cyncical if you like. It is true. I was the trigger man who lit the fuse to Europe in 1939......there was no Sarajevo the second, no assassin to start Hitler's war...." so reads the confession of Alfred Helmut Naujocks in Hamburg, Germany.

    He was the head of the Sicherheitsdienst..the infamous SD of the Nazis, formed when they first came to power.

    Read the book, The Man Who Started the War by Gunter Peis. It will open many eyes as to the beginning of the war, and wherein lies the cause, the goal, the intention of the Nazi regime.

    Cheers,

    Jim
     
    #4 Jim1999, Sep 13, 2003
  5. Clay Knick

    Clay Knick New Member

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    Ideological facism in Germany (Nazis).
    "War worship," militarism, in Japan.
    Facism in Italy.

    Ideas do have consequences.

    Major B there have been others who believed
    the Germans were "naturally" prone to
    war. I think Churchill and FDR expressed
    those opinions. I heard a story
    about this on NPR not long ago. There is
    still a lot on the BBC about WW 2 and some
    Germans are complaining about being portrayed
    as Nazis.
     
    #5 Clay Knick, Sep 13, 2003
  6. Jim1999

    Jim1999 <img src =/Jim1999.jpg>

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    Always keep in mind what we had come through prior to World War 2. We had ten years of depression. We had no money and we had little food. The basics were scarce.

    In this context, Hitler had become a genius to German recovery. Industry was on the mend as was the German economy. Most the German people backed Hitler (How did he come to office?). If you were German, you prolly would too.

    Hitler rubbed the heads of youngsters, poured praise on babies and did all those personable things to endear him to people. Then, there was his dark side, but if you went along with his system, there was little to fear, so long as you were Germanic.

    Along with this political move and success came the desire for power, and this was ultimately the downfall.

    The root of all war is greed and avarice, and the Second World War was no exception.

    Cheers,

    Jim
     
    #6 Jim1999, Sep 13, 2003
  7. Tanker

    Tanker New Member

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    &gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;Anyone ever heard that logic before? I was absolutely stunned. &lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;

    And I was stunned when I learned that some Americans still think that the south was on the right side in the Civil War. The situation seems very similar. I guess there is never an idealogy so wicked that one cannot find some who support it.
     
    #7 Tanker, Sep 13, 2003
  8. LadyEagle

    LadyEagle <b>Moderator</b> <img src =/israel.gif>

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    And I was stunned to read a desperate & futile attempt to hijack the thread to yet another North v South thread. [​IMG] :rolleyes:
     
    #8 LadyEagle, Sep 13, 2003
  9. Tanker

    Tanker New Member

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    I am not trying to change the subject of the thread, just saw an analogy there that seemed worth a comment.
     
    #9 Tanker, Sep 13, 2003
  10. Dr. Bob

    Dr. Bob Administrator
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    Nobody's listening to you anymore, Tank. Your unitarian abolitionist rhetoric has swayed no one.

    That said, nobody is listening to ME either!

    So back to the subject. Poland had been given much German territory (except the Danzig corridor) and Russia had taken some too.

    Hitler promised "lebenstrum" (sp?) for the burgeoning German master race. Within six weeks of the war starting (by Britain) German settlers were moving en masse into Poland to farm.

    Slavs were subhuman (akin to Jew and Gypsy) and taking THEIR land which was illegally taken from Germany and their Teutonic Knights back in the middle ages. Killing them, en-slav-ing them was doing them a favor!

    Tank is right! Has a antebellum ring to it. Of course, they were all WHITE.
     
    #10 Dr. Bob, Sep 14, 2003
  11. Tanker

    Tanker New Member

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    &gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;Nobody's listening to you anymore, Tank. Your unitarian abolitionist rhetoric has swayed no one.&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;,

    I am not a unitarian, but I do get annoyed when anyone supports an overtly racist regime, even one that is long since been discarded, as in the case of the Confederacy.
     
    #11 Tanker, Sep 14, 2003
  12. Hardsheller

    Hardsheller Active Member
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    The original Question was - Who Started WWII?

    Based on previous threads on this board, I'm sure many believe it was America and specifically American Republicans who came out of the South and had Confederate Grandparents who owned slaves! :D
     
    #12 Hardsheller, Sep 14, 2003
  13. Dr. Bob

    Dr. Bob Administrator
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    [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG]
     
    #13 Dr. Bob, Sep 14, 2003
  14. Major B

    Major B <img src=/6069.jpg>

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    See the film series by Frank Capra "Why We Fight," especially the epilogue episode entitled "Here's Germany." Good stuff.
     
    #14 Major B, Sep 15, 2003
  15. Eladar

    Eladar New Member

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    My vote:

    Woodrow Wilson

    Nothing like a liberal's view of a fair surrender.
     
    #15 Eladar, Sep 16, 2003
  16. rsr

    rsr <b> 7,000 posts club</b>
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    Eladar, I am at a loss to understand that remark. Please explain.
     
    #16 rsr, Sep 16, 2003
  17. Eladar

    Eladar New Member

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    There should have been no limitation put on the allied arms. I can see limiting the arms of those who lost the war. I don't see why the victor's military should be reduced too.

    Germany should have been forced into an unconditional surrender and stripped of all military capabilities, while our allies should have been free to build up their militaries at will.

    It is as simple as that.
     
    #17 Eladar, Sep 16, 2003
  18. Taufgesinnter

    Taufgesinnter New Member

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    George Washington started WWII. It was his incompetence at Fort Necessity that precipitated the French & Indian War. The cost of that war caused Britain to raise taxes in its American colonies, which made the colonists become revolting. They defeated their lawful ruler with the help of the French. The cost of that war required France to raise taxes, which caused the French people to become revolting. That enabled the rise of Napoleon, whose wars forcibly amalgamated dozens of small German territories. The German Confederation soon resulted, which undergirded the unification of Germany, which promptly took back the French-occupied Alsace-Lorraine. This all helped develop a system of balanced powers in Europe, which unraveled to cause WWI, after which France took Alsace-Lorraine and the horrible edicts of the Versailles Treaty were imposed. Those ruined Germany, fueling the rise of the Nazis and leading directly to WWII.

    Washington was also responsible for Vietnam and the Cold War, and for the cancellation of Little House on the Prairie. :D
     
    #18 Taufgesinnter, Sep 16, 2003
  19. Dr. Bob

    Dr. Bob Administrator
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    [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG]
     
    #19 Dr. Bob, Sep 16, 2003
  20. Matt Black

    Matt Black Well-Known Member
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    In an attempt to continue the ridiculousness, quite clearly it was a vast right-wing conspiracy of the CIA, the Jews and the Confederates, as of course was 9/11 :D

    This reminds me of the Fawlty Towers episode with the Germans-

    German guest: "Please stop talking about the war - it's upsetting my wife."

    Basil Fawlty: "Well, you started it."

    GG: "No, I didn't"

    BF: "Yes you did, you invaded Poland!"

    Yours in Christ

    Matt
     
    #20 Matt Black, Sep 16, 2003
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