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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   26493 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 17, 2025

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"Who started WWII" is more ambiguous than that. WWII started with England and France's declaration of war on Germany. Germany had a reasonable casus belli on Poland, and England was pressuring Poland not to negotiate with Germany. Even more important are the many peace proposals Germany offered England, which entailed Germany fully pulling out of France, and Churchill not only rejected them but even hid them from the public. Ultimately Churchill and the United States would set the only war aim as Unconditional Surrender, which is what ultimately led to the mass murder and destruction.

Furthermore the tall tale of Germans tricking millions of Jews into walking into gas chambers that had been disguised as shower rooms is a fantasy meant to justify this one-sided WWII narrative. Incidentally, Grok 3 is the first LLM I've seen explicitly take the Revisionist side of a core argument regarding that narrative, even going so far as to criticize the Narrative's sole reliance on witness testimony over any other form of evidence. Also first that has accurately summarized the mainstream position on an issue, accurately summarized the Revisionist position on an issue, and explicitly concurred with the Revisionists that the "official claim is not plausible under scrutiny." The days of that narrative are numbered, and other WWII Revisionism is going to come along with the collapse of that narrative.

Germany's war on Poland provides no justification for England and France to ally with the Soviet Union in a catastrophic war aim of unconditional surrender on Germany.

On that note, normalize the Roman Salute. It's just a cool pose. It evokes emotions in people and that makes it powerful.

Germany's war on Poland provides no justification for England and France to ally with the Soviet Union in a catastrophic war aim of unconditional surrender on Germany.

This is the second time you've made this comment. I know you're not a complete fucking mongoloid, but obviously you think the rest of us are. So tell me again: how did the Soviet Union end up allying with the UK? Did Germany, say, do anything to the USSR that made them break their alliance?

Your talking to someone literally names SS. I suspect you may not get edifying answers from him on this topic.

Less antagonism, please.

You are pretending like their hands were tied, when they could have remained neutral or even allied with Germany against the Soviet Union. Hitler pleaded for either of those two options, offering to pull out of France for peace with Britain. But Britain wanted to restrain Germany from becoming the greatest European power, so they allied with the Soviet Union and destroyed Europe to make it happen.

And then after they destroyed Germany they were desperate to make them the front line against the Soviet Union.

You are pretending like their hands were tied, when they could have remained neutral or even allied with Germany against the Soviet Union. Hitler pleaded for either of those two options, offering to pull out of France for peace with Britain. But Britain wanted to restrain Germany from becoming the greatest European power, so they allied with the Soviet Union and destroyed Europe to make it happen.

So after Germany has conquered Poland, France, Denmark, Czechoslovakia, Norway, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Greece, and tried to conquer the UK, you think they should have made common cause with Hitler. I'm shocked they refused to.

The only worthy response came from Churchill:

However matters may go in France or with the French Government, or other French Governments, we in this Island and in the British Empire will never lose our sense of comradeship with the French people. If we are now called upon to endure what they have been suffering, we shall emulate their courage, and if final victory rewards our toils they shall share the gains, aye, and freedom shall be restored to all. We abate nothing of our just demands; not one jot or tittle do we recede. Czechs, Poles, Norwegians, Dutch, Belgians have joined their causes to our own. All these shall be restored. What General Weygand has called the Battle of France is over. I expect the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour."

The notion that Germany had any intention of conquering the UK is just totally ridiculous. Germany conquered France because France declared war on Germany and then Germany offered peace, pulling out of France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Norway. Of course the notion that Germany had any plan or intention whatsoever of conquering Britain is a pure, unadulterated lie, meant to manipulate people like you into accepting a certain narrative.

if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour."

The British Empire was lost due to "Their finest hour!" They lost Poland too, and they destroyed Europe and killed tens of millions and gifted half of Europe to the Soviet Union. The only way the actual outcome of that war can be reconciled with the victors coming out as justified is with an enormous pile of lies.

offering to pull out of France for peace with Britain

What are you referencing?

Don't know why johnfabian alludes to "vague offers", Hitler offered to evacuate from France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Norway in exchange for Britain's neutrality in the war against the Soviet Union. This was after Hitler conquered France and after Dunkirk, so when he was in his strongest bargaining position. Churchill rejected the offer.

Neo-nazis frequently allude to "Hitler's peace offers"; vague claims that Hitler offered various enticements to the western allies after the fall of Poland, and later the UK after the defeat of France, to end this senseless and destructive conflict so the Aryan races could work together to defeat the communist menace.

There's a kernel of truth: Hitler wasn't particularly interested in fighting the UK, which he saw as a potential racial ally, and twice Hitler made mentions of peace offers to the Reichstag (in October 1939, and again in July 1940). There were no specifics described, nor did the western allies ever enter into peace negotiations, so any claims about specific terms (neo-nazis will claim Hitler offered to decamp from all of France, Belgium, and Luxembourg, for example) are nonsense. Nor did Germany ever seek to initiate peace talks either.

There was about a week in May-June 1940 where Lord Halifax brought up the notion of seeking a negotiated peace via mediation by Italy, but the Cabinet was decided against it. They thought that no terms Germany would offer would offer them a better situation than continuing to fight; in any case it was pointless to make agreements with Hitler because he had violated every international agreement he had ever signed.

Hey I'm only making sure I'm not missing a hidden gem of history buried by the International Jewry.

If people want to consider the July 1940 Reichstag address a peace overture -- I assume July 40 address is the source of the idea since France is a chip -- then it's an atypical one. To me it reads as another handwave that the UK wasn't a priority, the UK could (and should) accept German conquest, accept the new status quo, and bow out. It's a speech of victory, of conquest, of military and diplomatic success.

German-Russian relations have been established for good. The reason for this was that England and France, with the support of certain smaller states, incessantly attributed to Germany ambitions to conquer terrain which lay completely outside the sphere of German interests. At one time, Germany was eyeing the occupation of the Ukraine; then again it sought to invade Finland; at another time it was claimed that Romania was threatened; then finally even Turkey was endangered. Given these circumstances, I held it to be proper to undertake, above all, with Russia, a sober delineation of interests, to once and for all clarify what Germany believes it must regard as its sphere of interest in securing its future, and what in turn Russia holds to be vital to its existence.

Based on this clear delineation of mutual spheres of interest, the Russo- German relationship was revised. It is childish to hope that in the course of this revision tensions might arise anew between Germany and Russia...

These are not the words of a statesman that wants to set aside conflict and recruit the might of the British Empire. It's assurances to Stalin that Soviets have nothing to worry about. Then more prodding Churchill to surrender.

I am fully aware that with our response, which one day will come, will also come the nameless suffering and misfortune of many men. Naturally, this does not apply to Mr. Churchill himself since by then he will surely be secure in Canada, where the money and the children of the most distinguished of war profiteers have already been brought. But there will be great tragedy for millions of other men.

And Mr. Churchill should make an exception and place trust in me when as a prophet I now proclaim: A great world empire will be destroyed. A world empire which I never had the ambition to destroy or as much as harm. Alas, I am fully aware that the continuation of this war will end only in the complete shattering of one of the two warring parties. Mr. Churchill may believe this to be Germany. I know it to be England. In this hour I feel compelled, standing before my conscience, to direct yet another appeal to reason in England. I believe I can do this as I am not asking for something as the vanquished, but rather, as the victor, I am speaking in the name of reason. I see no compelling reason which could force the continuation of this war.

The UK being at war with Germany was bad for Germany. Everyone knew this. Hitler knew it when he wrote Mein Kampf in the 1920's. Generals knew it was bad in 1939, they still knew it was bad after victories in 1940, and it only became worse each year the fact remained true. The haunting face of the fact drove a legendary cosmic epiphany right into Rudolf Hess's head. Seems like the time for counterfactual fantasy diplomacy would be much earlier than Summer of 1940.

provides no justification for England

Leaving aside for a second the more odious points of this comment, this is preposterous. Britain had no justification for attempting to stop Germany attempting to make itself the pre-eminent power in Europe by conquest? Almost as if it was the guiding principle of the British to prevent such a state of affairs emerging for centuries prior. This was precisely the argument Napoleon tried to give at various - Britain had no need to meddle in continental affairs rather than attending to its overseas possessions and trading activities and had ruined itself for the sake of a conflict it had no interest in. It was preposterous then and equally so in 1939. And indeed the conduct of Hitler and the and the Nazi government before and during the war proved that they could never be tolerated as a major element of the European order.

Britain had no justification for attempting to stop Germany attempting to make itself the pre-eminent power in Europe by conquest?

This is the Revisionist position. And no I do not think it had a justification to do so with the threat of the Soviet Union and the human and cultural cost of destroying Old Europe in a war of unconditional surrender. And ultimately Britain lost its own Empire. But yes Britain did start WWII in order to prevent Germany from becoming the pre-eminent power in Europe. That's the real reason WWII started and Britain allied with the Soviet Union to make it happen. It wasn't over Danzig, all of Poland was conquered by Britain's ally at the end of the day.

The Treaty of Versailles was an attempt to make sure Germany never become the pre-eminent power in Europe. But it was unenforceable. So they waged war ostensibly over Danzig, but then retconned it ultimately to be about the Holocaust narrative to try to post-hoc justify the war and solely blame Germany for the utter destruction and death.

Very funny that Britain makes the claim Germany wanted to "make itself the pre-eminent power in Europe by conquest" over Danzig. Germany offered to fully evacuate from Western Europe for peace and England said no.

But yes, the real reason for the war was Britain didn't want Germany to become the largest power in Europe. No that is not at all a justification for their alliance with the Soviet Union, the demand for unconditional surrender, and mass death and destruction of Europe to realize that objective. Germany is today arguably the largest power on the European Continent anyway. No it was not justified.

This is the Revisionist position.

As @johnfabian said, you must think we're complete fucking mongoloids if you expect us to buy that.

Contemporary articles have Sir John Simon and Anthony Eden both drawing parallels to Napoleon and the 30 years war in thier opposition to appeasement, and you can find speechs from Churchill about the German/Nazi Menace going back the early 30s. There's also the 390 years of observable foriegn policy between the end of the English Civil War and the start of World War Two.

The idea that the war was justified because contemporary articles compared Hitler to Napoleon is just absurd, as absurd as all the contemporary articles you can point to which endlessly compare X with Hitler to justify some war, whether it's Ukraine (with both Zelensky and Putin invoking Hitler to justify the war effort on the other) or Iraq or Iran. Britain lost its Empire, Europe was destroyed, tens of millions dead, half of Europe gifted to the Soviet Union including Poland.... oh but contemporary articles said it had to be done because of Napoleon, right.

The idea that the war was justified because contemporary articles compared Hitler to Napoleon is just absurd

That wasn't the claim, the claim was that the British having a long-standing foriegn policy of countering any individual continental power that got too big was a "Revisionist position".

That it is relatively easy to find examples of the British government and it's officials citing this policy and acting upon it prior to 1939 is proof to the contrary.

Might makes right, i dont think the historical semantics really matter. Who ever won the conflict would have gone down in history as the "justifed" one.

Might makes right

That's the bone of contention isn’t it?

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