WWI: What if the U.S. stayed neutral?

[molly bloom]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by lord of the mark

Originally posted by molly bloom

Funny, those things I've said are so 'controversial' you remember ME as having written them, but just can't find where- or can't expend the effort to find them.

Its kinda like I know it snows in the winter, but cant expend the effort to look up if it snowed on January 18, 2005.

No it isn't. It snows in winter generally. Winter comes around every year.

I supposedly said something specific and controversial, controversial enough for you to single me and it out and mention me by name.

If you are going to do so in future, have the grace to be precise and produce some evidence.

Alright, as long as you "do your thing" only in response to Ned, I wont bring it up again.

My 'thing'. What is that supposed to be ?

Tsk tsk.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris


I have no source, but probably... after all, the Versailles sanctions were bleeding the country dry.

Weimar Germany was recovering under Rathenau and Stresemann.

American economic advice and aid greatly helped in Weimar Germany's post-WWI recovery, specifically the Dawes & Young Plans.

Unfortunately rightwingers murdered Rathenau and Stresemann died as the Wall Street Crash precipitated a global economic meltdown.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
I believe that the war created the conditions for an action as drastic as the Final Solution. If Hitler had really wanted to exterminate the Jews, he could have done it long before '42.

The occupation of Poland provided several things for the Nazi regime- a large place to dump German, Czech, Slovak and Austrian Jews who had been unfortunate enough not to escape the tightening grip of totalitarian regimes on their daily lives and a large population of Polish Jews.

Also, space to set up 'detention' centres (later to become dedicated extermination camps for European Jewry) and railway access to Russia and the Baltic States, supplies of timber and raw materials in Polish Silesia.

Although other public utilities were allowed to run down in Poland, the railway network was ordered to be maintained in prime operating condition, both to facilitate the proposed military offensive against the U.S.S.R. and the Final Solution.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned


They were faced then with three alternatives:

1) Continue the war to destroy Germany;

2) Stop the war with no peace talks or treaties; or

3) Stop the war for peace talks with a man, Hitler, who's word was worthless.

Number 3 is what should have been chosen if the Brits and French could have gotten the USSR and the US to the table as well to be guarantors of whatever came out of the talks. I know FDR was willing, at least before the conflict started, to attend such a conference or even host it.

But they chose 1.

Except for events, they would have lost that war, which alone makes the choice unreasonable.
I know hindsight is 20-20 here, but this is why I think we should always choose negotiations first and not last.

I note you choose not to directly answer my question.

Negotiations were chosen and allowed Austria to be occupied and Czechoslovakia (a democracy) to be dismembered and a foreign totalitarian regime established in the Bohemian-Moravian 'Protectorate'.

But given what happened to so many millions of innocents, the choice was clearly wrong.

So I'll ask it again, because you seem to keep missing the point: how much are lives worth ? Innocent Czech, Slovak, Polish and Austrian and German lives that is.

How many do you suggest the Nazi Regime should be allowed to kill before war is declared ?


How many European neutrals should be allowed to be occupied by the Nazis before war becomes an option ?

There were German speakers in Italy, Switzerland, Hungary, Rumania and Russia- is it really reasonable to expect that all that territory should just be handed over to a despotic regime ?

But they chose 1.

Because Hitler had been warned explicitly and because Poland was an ally.

Because Hitler had proven that no matter what the treaty or what he said publicly, he was a liar and he could not be trusted.

It doesn't even need the benefit of hindsight to see this, as his actions contradicted his words, about the Rhineland, about Versailles, about the status of Austria, about the Sudetenland, about Czechoslovakia and eventually about Poland- even without his lies about internal domestic German affairs.

War is too unpredictable.

And Hitler was entirely predictable- one of his favourite sayings was 'so oder so'- he would take whichever advantage came his way, gullible statesmen, political violence, alliance with capitalists, whatever served his purposes at the time.

You're naive to think anything else.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned


Clearly, the Altlantic Charter was a defensive alliance to, in the words of the Charter, "[destroy] NAZI Germany."

In the words of the Charter:

Sixth, after the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny,

Not Nazi Germany. A rather different thing altogether.

This is typical of British defensive alliances, I take it.

Even allowing for your usual dreary anti-British sentiments, this is just plain stupid.

If you think this is 'typical', give other instances. They shouldn't be hard to find with your archivist skills....

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned


The Brit records are sealed, that's why we don't know precisely what terms were discussed.

You keep saying this. I keep asking what records. We hear silence. Then we get a repetition of 'The Brit records are sealed' from you.


Evidence, facts to support your statement 'The Brit records are sealed' and specifically which records.

We do know what Hitler was offering- nothing concrete. You'd know too had you done any serious research.

As a starting point, he wanted recognition of Germany's conquests in Poland.

As with German domestic politics, Austria and Czechoslovakia and Poland, Hitler establishes his alibi and make sit look as though it's the other side that has wronged the peacemaker Hitler.

It's sad that there are still the uninformed and the gullible waiting to be taken in.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned
I don't have the time and patience to answer your entire post point by point.

Well that would involve research and answering specific questions with facts and details.

But I understand.

Genuine historical enquiry is just too hard when one can rely instead on the electronic equivalent of the lavatory walls of the incontinent wing of an asylum for the criminally insane for one's 'facts'.

Sixth, after the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny, they hope to see established a peace...."

Germany was not the same as 'the Nazi tyranny' .

More to the point, where does the U.S. commit itself to doing anything concrete to destroying this Nazi tyranny ?

I see a general statement of principles and hopes- not an aggressive military alliance.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned


The Kaiser called off the attack West that had already begun.

When the British message was clarified, the Kaiser reversed himself once more.

You can't even get this right.

Von Moltke told the Kaiser that it was impossible to stop the mobilization westwards and send the troops eastwards instead.

All based on a misinterpretation of what Lichnowsky (German ambassador in London) thought Edward Grey had said.

It didn't stop Austria-Hungary's war on Serbia.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned


BTW, weren't the Jewish areas of Poland occuppied by the USSR in October 1939?

No.

Hitler to Keitel 17th October 1939:

" the old and new Reich area..." [was to be] "...cleansed of Jews, Polacks and company..."

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned

After such a conference, Hitler could no longer justify breaches of a treaty that resulted as being the forced on Germany against its will.

You keep saying Versailles (and presumably St. Germain) was forced on Germany against its will.

You keep failing to provide proof for this.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned


LoTM, Europe was choosing sides early in the war.

No, Nazi Germany was making plans to invade neutral Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

Some were German allies

Occupied Austria (no choice). The Bohemia-Moravia Protectorate (no choice). The puppet Slovak state under Tiso (no real choice). Mussolini's Italy (eventually). Bulgaria, Hungary and Rumania (eventually).

Any idea as to what connects those states, say, vis-a-vis status as functioning democracies ?

Germany did not invade or occupy the neutrals, its friends or its allies.

Just plain wrong. See above.

But he thought, after the fall of France and England's refusal of his peace offer, that England and Stalin had reached a deal that called for a Soviet attack on him.

So far all the evidence we have from you for this, is your word, which is basically a repetition of what you understood from a television programme.

Not really good enough evidence I'm afraid.

When Germany attacked, it encounter millions of Soviet troops on its border whose officers stated that they had planned their own attack on Hitler later that summer.

Really ? Can you quote these sources ?

Are they as reliable as the Nazi evidence of Polish aggression at Gleiwitz (Operation Canned Goods) ?

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned
BTW, when I was in law school, I met a Ukrainian refugee who was in the Soviet army at the time. He was captured in the opening phases of the war and spent the rest of the war in a German prison camp.

He confirmed to me the view that the USSR planned to attack Germany.

I've met people who thought the moon landing was faked, and that Israel warned Jews to get out of the World Trade Centre before September 11th 2001.

I wonder what role some Ukrainians played in WWII... and how much love they had for Russian Communists or Jews.

Still, you have the internet equivalent of the man in the pub, so what you say must be true!

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned


According to Molly, not one single Slav should have survived even a few months in German captivity.

Not even remotely true, and certainly notsupported by anything like a quotation from what I've written.

When all else fails, fall back on outright lies, eh, Ned ?

'Mein Kampf' and Hitler's paranoid-hysterical style must be rubbing off on you.

Truly pathetic.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned


I am no expert.

At last, you get something right.

Fact !!!!!

They would have been expelled from Germany in some fashion, true. But they probably would have ended up in Israel or the United States.

I suggest you read:

'The War Against The Jews 1933-1945' by Lucy Dawidowicz

and Richard Grunberger's 'A Social History Of The Third Reich' before you start to comment on subjects you are clearly un- and mis- informed about.

You're simply beginning to get offensive now.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned


Given that the US went to war against Germany, in fact, and occuppied Germany since to guarantee peace, I think your view is shortsighted.

Didn't Nazi Germany declare war on the U.S. ?


Aggressor!!!!


Round and round the Ned goes, why he believes this crap, nobody knows....