[BRIGADE] PJB: Was the Holocaust Inevitable?
Published: Fri, 06/20/08
There is an outstanding Newsweek video interview with Pat Buchanan
discussing their cover story and the Christopher Hitchens review of
"Churchill, Hitler and The Unnecessary War."
See Pat's column below, the video and more at:
http://patbuchananbooks.com/
For the Cause - Linda
PS -- Pat's book is #10 on the New York Times best seller list!
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Was the Holocaust Inevitable?
by Patrick J. Buchanan
Friday, June 20, 2008
"What Would Winston Do?"
So asks Newsweek's cover, which features a full-length photo of the
prime minister his people voted the greatest Briton of them all.
Quite a tribute, when one realizes Churchill's career coincides
with the collapse of the British empire and the fall of his nation
from world pre-eminence to third-rate power.
That the Newsweek cover was sparked by my book "Churchill, Hitler
and The Unnecessary War" seems apparent, as one of the three
essays, by Christopher Hitchens, was a scathing review. Though in
places complimentary, Hitchens charmingly concludes: This book
"stinks."
Understandable. No Brit can easily concede my central thesis: The
Brits kicked away their empire. Through colossal blunders, Britain
twice declared war on a Germany that had not attacked her and did
not want war with her, fought for 10 bloody years and lost it all.
Unable to face the truth, Hitchens seeks solace in old myths.
We had to stop Prussian militarism in 1914, says Hitchens. "The
Kaiser's policy shows that Germany was looking for a chance for war
all over the globe."
Nonsense. If the Kaiser were looking for a war he would have found
it. But in 1914, he had been in power for 25 years, was deep into
middle age but had never fought a war nor seen a battle.
From Waterloo to World War I, Prussia fought three wars, all in one
seven-year period, 1864 to 1871. Out of these wars, she acquired
two duchies, Schleswig and Holstein, and two provinces, Alsace and
Lorraine. By 1914, Germany had not fought a war in two generations.
Does that sound like a nation out to conquer the world?
As for the Kaiser's bellicose support for the Boers, his igniting
the Agadir crisis in 1905, his building of a great fleet, his
seeking of colonies in Africa, he was only aping the British, whose
approbation and friendship he desperately sought all his life and
was ever denied.
In every crisis the Kaiser blundered into, including his foolish
"blank cheque" to Austria after Serb assassins murdered the heir to
the Austrian throne, the Kaiser backed down or was trying to back
away when war erupted.
Even Churchill, who before 1914 was charging the Kaiser with
seeking "the dominion of the world," conceded, "History should ...
acquit William II of having plotted and planned the World War."
What of World War II? Surely, it was necessary to declare war to
stop Adolf Hitler from conquering the world and conducting the
Holocaust.
Yet consider. Before Britain declared war on him, Hitler never
demanded return of any lands lost at Versailles to the West.
Northern Schleswig had gone to Denmark in 1919, Eupen and Malmedy
had gone to Belgium, Alsace and Lorraine to France.
Why did Hitler not demand these lands back? Because he sought an
alliance, or at least friendship, with Great Britain and knew any
move on France would mean war with Britain -- a war he never wanted.
If Hitler were out to conquer the world, why did he not build a
great fleet? Why did he not demand the French fleet when France
surrendered? Germany had to give up its High Seas Fleet in 1918.
Why did he build his own Maginot Line, the Western Wall, in the
Rhineland, if he meant all along to invade France?
If he wanted war with the West, why did he offer peace after Poland
and offer to end the war, again, after Dunkirk?
That Hitler was a rabid anti-Semite is undeniable. "Mein Kampf" is
saturated in anti-Semitism. The Nuremberg Laws confirm it. But for
the six years before Britain declared war, there was no Holocaust,
and for two years after the war began, there was no Holocaust.
Not until midwinter 1942 was the Wannsee Conference held, where the
Final Solution was on the table.
That conference was not convened until Hitler had been halted in
Russia, was at war with America and sensed doom was inevitable.
Then the trains began to roll.
And why did Hitler invade Russia? This writer quotes Hitler 10
times as saying that only by knocking out Russia could he convince
Britain it could not win and must end the war.
Hitchens mocks this view, invoking the Hitler-madman theory.
"Could we have a better definition of derangement and megalomania
than the case of a dictator who overrules his own generals and
invades Russia in wintertime ... ?"
Christopher, Hitler invaded Russia on June 22.
The Holocaust was not a cause of the war, but a consequence of the
war. No war, no Holocaust.
Britain went to war with Germany to save Poland. She did not save
Poland. She did lose the empire. And Josef Stalin, whose victims
outnumbered those of Hitler 1,000 to one as of September 1939, and
who joined Hitler in the rape of Poland, wound up with all of
Poland, and all the Christian nations from the Urals to the Elbe.
The British Empire fought, bled and died, and made Eastern and
Central Europe safe for Stalinism. No wonder Winston Churchill was
so melancholy in old age. No wonder Christopher rails against the
book. As T.S. Eliot observed, "Mankind cannot bear much reality."
SOURCE:
http://buchanan.org/blog/2008/06/pjb-was-the-holocaust-inevitable/