Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 5
Time to start wrapping things up with Herbert the effort commenter by sorting through the convoluted mess that is the last paragraph of his post.
Herbert states:
“(Being confused about the food priority policy is also a fundamental misunderstanding of National Socialist ideology. Hitler correctly understood that in order for Germany to complete with the US as a world power, it needed a similar size and population. The East up to the Urals was meant to be to Germany what the West was to the US. In the long term, Moscow and Baku would be as German as Denver and LA are American. This would require Germanizing the minority of the population that was worthy, and removing the rest. The Jewish people were of course the immediate priority, but all Slavic peoples in these now dissolved nations would have to be replaced by Germany. The idea of puppet states was rejected, Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia etc would have to be dead nations (at least in Eastern European territory). Ideally, yes, this removal would be expulsion. Most likely to Siberia. If Barbarossa had accomplished its goals and reaches the A-A line in 6 months this is what would have been done even to the Jews. Unfortunately, it stalled and this wasn’t an option. The choice was to either delay the timeline or proceed as normal. Hitler would never be cowardly and refuse to do harsh but necessary things while hundreds thousand of good German men, women and children were being brutally killed. Especially when he was already letting hundreds of thousands of POWs intentionally starve to death, something no one contests)”
What we have here is a litany of assertions without citations. Because of this I cannot critique his sources, assuming that there are any. I get the feeling that Herbert read an academic Holocaust-affirming book or two and is uncritically repeating their claims.
Let’s talk about academia and the Holocaust. If you have any sort of dissenting view on the Holocaust narrative, you aren’t going to be in academia, end of story. And in some countries not only will you not be in academia, but you’ll be in prison as well. Germar Rudolf is an example of this.
To better understand Hitler’s motives we need to talk about Lebensraum, which means “living space” in German. About Lebensraum Wikipedia says:
“Lebensraum (German pronunciation: [ˈleːbənsˌʁaʊm] (listen), living space) is a German concept of expansionism and Völkisch nationalism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901,[2]Lebensraum became a geopolitical goal of Imperial Germany in World War I (1914–1918), as the core element of the Septemberprogramm of territorial expansion.[3] The most extreme form of this ideology was supported by the Nazi Party and Nazi Germany. Lebensraum was a leading motivation of Nazi Germany to initiate World War II, and it would continue this policy until the end of World War II.[4]“
A big problem we run into here is the unchallenged claim that Nazi Germany initiated WWII, which has dominated popular consciousness on the topic. This is an example of the war victors writing the history books. In an article by John Wear we are given many examples of “neutral” countries giving an honest assessment of who initiated WWII. I will use American historian Harry Elmer Barnes as an example, as he also helps illustrate the earlier point I made about academia.
Barnes correctly lays the lion’s share responsibility of turning the German-Polish conflict into a European war on the British:
Because Barnes opted to give a fair assessment of WWII, he went from being a highly regarded historian to being a “professional pariah.” Blacklisting wrongthinkers is how academia protects the WWII and Holocaust narratives. Now, to be fair, I’m not saying Barnes being blacklisted ipso facto proves he is correct. Obviously it’s theoretically possible an academic can be discredited for legitimately being completely wrong. What it does demonstrate, however, is whether a historical interpretation can even be explored and debated fairly in academia, regardless of its veracity. In this particular case, Barnes’s strong arguments can stand on their own two legs, and his persecution is clearly politically motivated.
“But Germany invaded Poland,” you may be saying. While technically this is true, most laypeople are unaware of the larger historical context surrounding Germany’s invasion of Poland. The Treaty of Versailles, an armistice so draconian toward Germany that even today’s mainstream historians commonly acknowledge it as such, nebulously floats around popular consciousness on the topic of the Second World War, but most are not intimately familiar with the details of what it actually did. It unjustly took land away from Germany after WWI. Some of this land, including parts of West Prussia and the Province of Pose, was given to Poland. The former German city of Danzig became a “free city” with administrative ties to Poland. In Danzig, ethnic Germans remained a supermajority after the territory was taken away from Germany. However, German people were a small minority within the country of Poland as a whole. The majority of the citizens of Danzig had never wanted to leave Germany, and they were eager to return to Germany in 1939. Below is a photograph of Danzig from 1937. It looks quite idyllic.
Besides from the citizens wanting to return to Germany, there were also problems between the Polish government and the German people living in Poland. According to another article by John Wear:
“German-Polish relationships had become strained by the increasing harshness with which the Polish authorities handled the German minority. The Polish government in the 1930s began to confiscate the land of its German minority at bargain prices through public expropriation. The German government resented the fact that German landowners received only one-eighth of the value of their holdings from the Polish government. Since the Polish public was aware of the German situation and desired to exploit it, the German minority in Poland could not sell the land in advance of expropriation. Furthermore, Polish law forbade Germans from privately selling large areas of land.”
A friend of the site sent me a link to a book of records from the The German Foreign Office. The book is in German, but I was able to copy text into a translator. The following is one such translation:
“No. 397 The German Ambassador in Warsaw to the Foreign Office
report
Warsaw, July 11, 1939
In accordance with instructions, I made very serious representations to the Deputy Foreign Minister, Count Szembek, about the murder of Alois Sornik, a member of the Reich. Count Szembek, who was well informed about the details of the case, pointed out that this was not a political matter, but that according to the information the Foreign Ministry had received so far, the murder had been committed out of jealousy. In contrast, I expressed that, even if personal reasons had played a part in the act, the seriousness of the crime was undoubtedly primarily due to the excessive and systematic anti-German incitement tolerated by the Polish government. Finally, Count Szembek admitted that the anti-German mood prevailing in Poland at the moment certainly had an influence on the perpetrator.”
And there is more evidence of Polish abuses to Germans outside of German reports. The 1922 Encyclopædia Britannica describes an incident that occurred before the Nazis had any power:
“On the whole the collaboration of the Inter-Allied control and the German officials proved satisfactory; but various differences arose, such as that which led to a strike of judges in May 1920. Both the Poles (under Korfanty) and the Germans opened an active canvassing campaign; and under Polish pressure the Germans in the southern and eastern districts were subjected to oppressive treatment. On Aug. 19 1920 the Poles felt strong enough, indeed, to make an attempt to seize the country by force. On all sides bands of Poles, chiefly recruited from Congress Poland, usurped authority. A number of Germans were forcibly carried across the frontier into Poland, and many were killed. Several weeks elapsed before it was possible to quell this rising and restore order. In the autumn of 1920 there was an exchange of notes between Germany and the Entente relating to the manner in which the plebiscite should be taken. It had been suggested by the Entente that the non-resident Upper Silesians of the German Reich should vote outside Upper Silesia, at Cologne. Germany protested against this, and her protest was recognized as valid by the Entente. In Jan. 1921 the date of the plebiscite was fixed for March 20 1921. An immediate revival took place in the use of terrorism by the Poles, especially in the districts of Rybnik, Pless, Kattowitz and Beuthen. It reached its climax in the days preceding the plebiscite. Voters from other parts of the German Reich were frequently refused admission to the polls; sometimes they were maltreated and even in some instances murdered; and houses where outvoters were staying were set on fire. The day of the plebiscite passed, however, without disturbance except at a few places, such as Rybnik and Pless.” (My emphasis added.)
Even though we cannot verify the German reports today (and it would have been difficult, if not impossible at times, for Germany to investigate crimes on foreign soil), it is only reasonable that Germany would take action on behalf of the Germans living in Danzig.
Taking action was not to immediately invade Poland. According to Wear’s article:
“Germany presented a proposal for a comprehensive settlement of the Danzig question with Poland on October 24, 1938. Hitler’s plan would allow Germany to annex Danzig and construct a superhighway and a railroad to East Prussia. In return Poland would be granted a permanent free port in Danzig and the right to build her own highway and railroad to the port. The entire Danzig area would also become a permanent free market for Polish goods on which no German customs duties would be levied. Germany would take the unprecedented step of recognizing and guaranteeing the existing German-Polish frontier, including the boundary in Upper Silesia established in 1922. This later provision was extremely important since the Versailles Treaty had given Poland much additional territory which Germany proposed to renounce. Hitler’s offer to guarantee Poland’s frontiers also carried with it a degree of military security that no other non-Communist nation could match.[8]“
After five months Polish Ambassador to Berlin, Joseph Lipski, formally rejected Germany’s settlement proposals, and Poland refused to negotiate. Lipski stated to German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop that “it was his painful duty to draw attention to the fact that any further pursuance of these German plans, especially where the return of Danzig to the Reich was concerned, meant war with Poland.”
So why would the United Kingdom butt in and start a world war over a conflict between Germany and Poland? This becomes more perplexing considering that Hitler admired Britain (see image below) and made numerous peace attempts with them. And it becomes even more perplexing considering that the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, 16 days after Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west, but ended up becoming Allies with the UK instead of enemies. There are many theories as to what motivated the UK, but that is something I don’t believe anyone can know for sure. However, it’s quite doubtful that the UK declaring war on Germany was for the sovereignty of Poland, as Poland became a communist state under the Soviet Union after the war.
After knowing the full story, a story that is not readily told by the Allied governments to their people, you can better decide if what Herbert says about Hitler’s ambitions sound reasonable or not. You can ask yourself whether it makes more sense that Hitler was a madman who wanted to take over the world, or if he was just a good leader who was trying to repair the fracturing of the German people that the Treaty of Versailles caused.
Looks like I’m going to have to write another article to finish addressing Herbert’s effort post. Continue to part five.