What if Bush41 had continued to Baghdad and destroyed the Iraqi regime?

[Ned]

Originally posted by ElTigre
That's not a REAL newspaper, Ned. A pupil of Oakham School made this newspaper page.

http://history.oakham.rutland.sch.uk/taste4.htm

On Nov. 11th 1918, the powers hadn't even met at Versailles yet...

Jokes on me.

Thanks for pointing this out.

Here is a cite from the BBC:

"What did people in Germany think about the Treaty? When the details of the treaty were published in June 1919 most Germans were horrified.
Germany had not been allowed to the Peace Conference and were told to accept the terms or else. Most Germans had believed that the Treaty would be lenient because of Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points.
Many Germans did not believe that the German army had actually been defeated in 1918 because Germany had not been invaded. One of these people was Corporal Adolf Hitler, who had been in hospital in November 1918 recovering from gas-blindness. Like many others he came to believe that the army had been "stabbed in the back" by the "November Criminals", the politicians who had signed the Armistice which had brought the Great War to an end on 11th November 1918.
Several of the clauses of the Treaty were thought to be very harsh. It was going to be almost impossible to pay the Reparations. In fact, the German government gave up after only one year, and the War Guilt Clause seemed particularly unfair. How could Germany be the only country to blame for the war? After all it had started when a Serbian shot an Austrian.
It was felt that Germany had simply been made a scapegoat by the other countries for all that had happened.

Feelings like these led to a great deal of unrest in Germany in the years from 1919 to 1922.
Returning soldiers formed armed gangs, the Freikorps, who roamed the streets attacking people. In March 1920 they tried to seize power.
There was an attempted revolution by the Communists in January 1919, the Spartacist Revolt.
There were many murders, including two government ministers, one of whom had signed the Armistice.
A number of extremist political parties were set up, including the German Workers' Party, which Adolf Hitler took over in 1921. He based his support upon the hatred that many Germans felt for the Treaty of Versailles.
The government became more and more unpopular and appeared to be very weak because it was not able to deal with the revolutions and the unrest. "

http://web.archive.org/web/20000819043035/http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/modern/versaill/versahtm.htm#q3

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned


Here is a photo of the front page of the Berlin times the day the treaty was signed. The word "diktat" is used. There is no ambiguity in the German response to the treaty they were "forced to sign." They were appalled and angry beyond words.

Well whadda shock!

Not so angry beyond words that they couldn't print a few thousand then...

Ned tells us that the Germans were 'forced' to sign Versailles and as unassailable 'proof' offers us a supposed German newspaper's opinion!

I do wonder why you persist in your view that the Germans were somehow wronged in WWI and WWII- there were more than enough papers printed in Russia, Great Britain and the United States to tell us that the Germans were the aggressors.

Still, if this tells us anything, it does tell us that although you kick up a fuss about British propaganda in WWI, you know or care absolutely nothing about German propaganda or the German press on the home front in WWI.



Naturally Germans were outraged by Versailles- they had been expecting another great German military victory, a victory promised to them by Ludendorff and Hindenburg. They did not know the true state of affairs on the Western Front, and after the Carthaginian peace inflicted on Russia, they had had illusory hopes of a similar peace in the West.

One has only to look at a few key facts to see that the militarists and the Kaiser were aware of the looming possibility of defeat, but chose to save their own faces by keeping the truth from the German people:

i) their anxiety over the resumption of unrestricted U-boat warfare and their knowledge that this might bring the United States intio the war against them;

ii) their choice of this course because the Allied naval blockade was working and because the British had instituted the convoy system;

iii) they knew of the military failures of Germany's Alliance partners, the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria; 'shackled to a corpse' was the way a German described the relationship between Germany and Austria-Hungary;

iv) their inability to prevent the Hunger Winters in Germany and the effect of them on civilian morale

v) their disappointment at the lack of a victory bonus from the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk- supplies from conquered areas were stopped from reaching Germany by hungry troops and citizens in Austria-Hungary and Germany had to send coal to keep trains running in the Donets Basin.

That they knew all this, and the likely consequences, is signalled by :

a) the Kaiser's Easter address in 1917 which offered the possibility of freeing up the franchise in Prussia.

b) in July of that same year the Reichstag for the first time took the initiative in a foreign policy decision- the Centrists and Left passed a resolution pressing for a peace treaty without territory being ceded.

c) Tirpitz creates a new militaristic political party in September of 1917- in order to garner support from a populace high on war propaganda and act as a counterbalance in the Reichstag and on the domestic front to the more realistic Liberals, Centrists and Leftists.

d) by September of 1918, even the die-hard militarists knew the end was in sight- so Ludendorff panics, scurries and calls for armistice and constitutional reform,

and finally

e) Hindenburg in November 1918 believes the Kaiser should abdicate but lacks the courage to pass on such a message himself.

The rats had finally deserted the sinking ship of state.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned

Crap.

Goodness knows, that seems to be your area of most, or only, expertise.

As to the location of the Jewish population, I did further research and found that about half of Poland's Jews lived in the Soviet area.

Really ? And where is the fruit of this research for us all to see ?

Over 300 000 Jews escaped Nazi-occupied Poland by fleeing to Soviet-occupied Poland- for instance.

Still, I won't bother educating you any further until we see from where you derive your 'facts' on Poland's pre-war Jewish population.

Not David Irving, we trust...

After the responses given to my question here on this board, I, and others reading this thread, were lead to believe that all the Jews of Poland lived in the German occuppied areas.

Really ? Which 'others' ?

Could you quote the specific pieces of information which led you to such a stupid conclusion ?

I'm afraid I can't be held responsible for your mistaken assumptions- there are so many of them.

But your medacity in lying about my not supporting my factual assertions when I or others have done so is just a bit too much.

Mendacious. Hmm, not bad coming from someone who relies on faked newspapers, Holocaust deniers and Florida schoolgirls for his 'factual assertions'.

Which lies of mine did you have in mind ?

Do be specific, if you can.

One more thing, both the Brits and the Germans were frantically trying to line up allies in Europe from 1939 onwords. Both were preparing for war as Briton had flung down the guantlet in May of that year.

Really ? Where ?

Be specific.

Your obsession about the Jews is laudable in its compassion,

How very glib and patronising of you.

but I still maintain that their fate had nothing to do with the reasons the war broke out.

As opposed to whom ?

Hitler said that the empire in the East was ripe for dissolution, and that once the Jewish Bolshevik domination was removed, Russia would fall.

Hitler in January of 1932 in a speech in Dusseldorf:

...yes, we have formed the inexorable decision to destroy Marxism in Germany down to its very last root.

Well, first Germany. And then ?

The Hossbach Memorandum of 1937 makes this clear:

The Führer then continued: The aim of German policy was to make secure and to preserve the racial community and to enlarge it. It was therefore a question of space.

The German racial community comprised over 85 million people and, because of their number and the narrow limits of habitable space in Europe, constituted a tightly packed racial core such as was not to be met in any other country and such as implied the right to a greater living space than in the case of other peoples. If, territorially speaking, there existed no political result corresponding to this German racial core, that was a consequence of centuries of historical development, and in the continuance of these political conditions lay the greatest danger to the preservation of the German race at its present peak. To arrest the decline of Germanism in Austria and Czechoslovakia was as little possible as to maintain the present level in Germany itself. Instead of increase, sterility was setting in, and in its train disorders of a social character must arise in course of time, since political and ideological ideas remain effective only so long as they furnish the basis for the realization of the essential vital demands of a people. Germany's future was therefore wholly conditional upon the solving of the need for space, and such a solution could be sought, of course, only for a foreseeable period of about one to three generations.

Before turning to the question of solving the need for space, it had to be considered whether a solution holding promise for the future was to be reached by means of autarchy or by means of an increased participation in world economy.

November 5th, 1937


Just in case it isn't clear:

I am convinced that the most difficult part of the preparatory work has already been achieved... Today we are faced with new tasks, for the Lebensraum of our people is too narrow.

Adolf Hitler, speech at Augsburg 21st November 1937

Where will this Lebensraum be found ?

The next step was Bohemia, Moravia, and Poland.

It was clear to me from the first moment that I could not be satisfied with the Sudeten territory.

That was only a partial solution.

The decision to march into Bohemia was made. Then followed the establishment of the Protectorate and with that the basis for the conquest of Poland was laid.

Adolf Hitler minutes of conference with principal commanding officers, 23rd November 1939

Where was next for Lebensraum ?

By no treaty or pact can a lasting neutrality of Soviet Russia be insured with safety. At present all reasons speak against Russia's departure from this state of neutrality. In eight months, one year, or several years this may be altered.

Adolf Hitler, Nuremberg Documents L-52

Well, I suppose by now Hitler was quite expert in the field of departures from states of neutrality and the abrogation of treaties...

But of course, Lebensraum could not be achieved without the removal of unnecessary mouths- the Jews in Nazi Germany and the other countries under German control, and any Slavs who did not work directly for the Reich, in either Germany or the countries it controlled.

Hitler's obsession, his mania, with Jews is sufficiently well-documented for me not to have to repeat it ad nauseam for everyone else- suffice to say, it is a persistent strain in his political thinking, from anti-semitic speeches in 1922 (Munich, 28th July, already quoted in part by me elsewhere), the racial laws of Nuremberg 1935, the events of Kristallnacht in 1938, to the planned ghettoization of Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland and the eradication of the Warsaw Ghetto and the construction of the extermination camps of Auschwitz, Mauthausen, Treblinka.

The Final Solution as decided at the Wannsee Conference in 1942 is but a 'refinement' of the methods already in use by the Einsatzgruppen in Poland and later after Barbarossa in Russia:

on June 27th 1941 at Lutsk, 2 000 Jews are murdered by Nazis and Ukrainian sympathisers, on June 30th, 4 000 Jews killed at Lvov, Kishinev in July 10 000 Jews are murdered.

One has to wonder why the Nazis bothered to kill quite so many Jews, Slavs and Communists (amongst others) if their destruction or ultimate fate was not of any great importance to their ideology or their war effort.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned

I did, or others did, and I can't stand you constantly asking for references when they were already given in this discussion, either here or in other threads.

See here's my problem with you: you make bold assertions and generalized statements about what suppsoedly happened in World War I and II and about what the aims of the Allies, or the United States, or Imperial Germany or Nnazi Germany or Hitler were, or what you think they might have been, but whenever you're asked for specific details, as you often are, you come up empty, time and again.

Case in point: the disposition of the Jewish population of Poland, prior to the Nazi invasion. No wI'm all too sure that the kind of revisionist, Holocaust-denying antisemitic websites and authors you seem to rely on would like to minimize:

i) the role of the Nazis and their allies in the murder of European Jewry

ii) the numbers of Jews living in areas under Nazi domination.

This being the case, it's no wonder that you, as just an aside, say, imply that the majority of Polish Jews lived in the area of Poland occupied by Russia.

Then we can proceed seamlessly from that unsupported assumption to the notion that somehow, the Soviets killed lots of Polish Jews and it wasn't really the fault of the noble Nazi Einsatzgruppen, and that wholesale slaughter of unarmed Jewish civilians wasn't already part of their instructions.

See, you do it all the time:

...but why, pray tell, did Germany send that note (if they in fact did)?

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=163795

about the Zimmermann Telegram- when even the sender admitted he sent it and why.

You can't even check the sources you (mis)use:

There is no confirmation that any non combatants were deliberately harmed by the Germans anywhere in that diary

Ned

Ooops! Done bin found out, and from your own source:

According to the Germans themselves, the town is being wiped out of existence. The Cathedral, the Library, the University, and other public buildings have either been destroyed or have suffered severely. People have been shot by hundreds, and those not killed are being driven from the town.

ElTigre

As ElTigre goes on to say:

Is your statement a deliberate lie, or didn't you bother to read your own source?

Well one has to wonder...

ElTigre, I didn't read it all, obviously.

Um, did you treat 'Mein Kampf' in the same arbitrary way... ?

'Secret treaties'- asserted but never proved:

Then how do you deal with the assertion in the OP's link that Belgium had secret alliances with Britain and France?

Now whose 'exemplary research was that, Ned ?

Not a Holocaust denier this time, but a Florida high schooler. I must say, when you go for scholarly support, you set your sights high, don't you ?

Ned, rearranging the dates of unrestricted U-boat warfare:

About the submarines. IIRC, the Germans initially stopped the vessels and allowed them to debark on lifeboats before sinking them with cannon fire from their deck guns.

'Forgot' about the Kaiser's declaration of 1915, didn't you ?

And again, more assertions not backed up with facts:

We see from the facts that Albert had the backing of Britain and France and counted on their support.

But the so-called neutrality of Belgium...

Or was he working for Britain and France?

Well, actually we didn't- because you didn't produce any.

More ridiculous accusations- backed up with nothing but rhetoric.

When Dauphin says:

Oh, Luxembourg. The country with an 'army' of 400 people. Yeah, they couldn't have fought (Germany) even if they had wanted to.

you reply with the totally unfounded :

And I'm sure France and Britain held that against them the entire war.

based on nothing but ignorance and prejudice.

Let us ignore, for the moment, shall we, that Britain also attacked the Ottoman Empire and Austria?

And where did these attacks occur and when ?

The answer, as usual, is not forthcoming.

Assertions about competition for oil in the Middle East:

Let us ignore the contest that was currently going on between Germany and the UK for exclusive rights to ME oil that were held, in part by the Ottoman Empire and its vassals.

And where was the evidence to back up this asserted 'fact' of yours Ned ?

Nowhere to be seen.

Of course the current thread is not the first time you've misattributed statements to me:

Molly even pointed out Britain's 1912 request to intervene without a formal request by Belgium. I think Albert knew what Britain was going to do.

See, when I post things, they don't disappear just before you get to read them. That way, if you're going to quote me, you don't have to use your own false paraphrases- you can use my own words!

Ain't life grand...

Introducing yet more doubt, without the benefit of facts:

Albert chose war for his people and certain destruction for his country for a matter of pride.

The more cynical among us might suspect a bribe, but that is another story.

What is another story, is why you insist on coming out with unsupported rubbish like that.

In lieu of evidence or knowledge, I suppose.

Like here:

Actually, by comparison, the Germans were much more civilized during WWII than during WWI, but the average person would not know that, would they?

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=164012

A classic Nedism, that one.

More 'crap' from Ned again on WWII :

There are some who say that Britain wanted negotiations to succeed. But the 20 thousand foot view says the opposite, that Britain wanted war with Germany and was using Poland as a pretext.

putting the blame squarely where Ned 'thinks' it lies:

And who paid for British lies?

Millions of upon millions of Poles and Polish Jews.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=160722

Amazing how the perfidious British somehow 'persuaded' Adolf Hitler to pursue a career in politics based on anti-Slav, anti-Semitic and anti-Communist principles- and then 'persuaded' him to put these principles into action.

Who was responsible for WWII ? In the Nedaverse, where facts are rarer than hens' teeth, the answer is clear:

Sure they are. They (the British) brought us WWII. Millions died, and not just soldiers.

Classic Nedism #2.

Self-awareness not Ned's strong point:

It is interesting that when they no longer have sufficient facts to argue their case, they just stop posting.

Well lack of facts never stopped you posting, did they ?



Facts aren't your forte though, are they ?

As to the Polish NA pact, Germany cancelled that in '38 I believe.

Uh huh. Or 28th April, 1939, as it was in this universe.

Ned's thoughts about English (and presumably, British foreign policy):

English foreign policy, at least from the days of Elizabeth I, has been about undermining if not actively engaging in war with the most powerful nation in Europe.

Pity you couldn't support this mistaken assertion with anything like a fact, isn't it ? But then English and European history must be such an obscure topic in the Nedaverse...

How to make Hitler and the Nazis seem 'normal':

The USSR was far worse at the very same time than was Hitler.

And what evidence did Ned produce ? Well, we're still waiting for that one...

Let's not let the capitalists off the hook! :

Even the US was massively racist. We had institutionalized discrimination and the KKK running wild lynching the uppity ones.

As a way of putting the Nazi extermination camps and their racist policies into some kind of context that's just so apposite, really, isn't it ?

Classic Nedism #3, I think.

I am not insensitive to totalitarianism

No clearly Ned- you just try to find the most ludicrous kinds of comparisons with Nazi race policies and their eventual death toll to let us all see what a bad world it was all over back in the 1930s and 1940s.

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

Oh that's why you find facts so hard to find! The dastardly Brits are hiding them from you...

But then Ned 'facts' are like this:

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

And what proof did you offer then for such a ludicrous remark ?

And what proof have you offered since ?

Some 'research' you've allegedly carried out, but since pens, crayons, chalk and pencils have all evidently disappeared, and there isn't a convenient Holocaust-denying website to back this bizarre assertion up, we're still none the wiser, and unable to check your new, revised, assertion.

But you cannot deny that millions of Soviet troops were at the border when Hitler attacked.

Why bother denying something you've offered no proof for ?

Hilarious. Classic Nedism #4.

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

More out and out lies from Ned.

molly never said or implied such a thing.

Finally Ned stumbles on the truth:

I am no expert

Only to ruin it all AGAIN:

But I think that if the war had stopped, there would have been no "final solution" even for German Jews. They would have been expelled from Germany in some fashion, true. But they probably would have ended up in Israel or the United States.

Excuses for the promises of a racist madman and mass murderer:

I'm sure Hitler would never have said such things publicly. In, truth, the speech does make him sound like a madman and not just untrustworthy.

He did say such things publicly, and this is what he said about the Jews of the Reich:

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

Hitler to Keitel 17th October 1939.

But of course it was only because the Allies stupidly kept fighting that Hitler ordered the death of so many Jews- or so you like to imply:

...and point to scholarly opinion that asserts that the Final Solution was a direct result of the war, particularly German reverses in the East.

Still, we know where you stand, don't we Ned ?

Historians can say that WWII started with the invasion of Poland, but the cause of the war was not NAZIism or Hitler. It was Britain and France and Versailles.

Those historians- whadda they know, fer Crissakes ?

[Dr Strangelove]

I'll add just a few points here.
The treaty of Versaille attempted to follow ethnograhic principles when it redrew the maps of Europe. The fact of the matter is that Poznan and West Prussia were ethnically Polish, so these areas were given to Poland. Remember that Germany, Russia and Austria had gobbled up Poland at the end of the 18th century. It's obvious then that if the Poles were to be given their national sovreignity back they were going to have to be given the lands claimed by these countries. That's exactly what happened, Poland was re-created from land previously claimed by Russia, Austria and Germany. To maintain that Poland should have been required to enter into negotiations with Germany regarding the status of Danzig, West Prussia and Poznan you might as well claim that the Poles should also have allowed themselves to be sued by the Austrians over the restoration of Galacia and by the Russians over the status of the rest of Poland. Really Ned, why do you hate the Poles so much?

Second, don't blame Wilson for the more draconian measures of the Verrsaille treaty. He tried to forge a more lenient treaty, but he was but one of many. I've done a bit of research on this subject. Initially hailed as a voice for progress and democracy at the confernece, when the people of the allied nations got a full ear of his plans for post-war Europe there was a tremendous outcry by the public and the press. Even if some of his fellow delegated might have been sympathetic with his pleas for moderation, which they were not, it would have been politically impossible for them to go along with his "no penalty, no indemnity" plans.

Third, the state of mind of Germans in the early 1940s was such that some regular German forces actually became intent on competing with the SS Einsatzgruppen regarding the extermination of undesirables in eastern europe. Army Group South was particularily notorious in this respect, but there were others.

[Kuciwalker]

Jesus Christ, Molly.

[Fake Boris]

I wonder why Ned persists, despite being subject to the most thorough pwnage I've seen in 6 years of Apolyton.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
I'll add just a few points here.
The treaty of Versaille attempted to follow ethnograhic principles when it redrew the maps of Europe. The fact of the matter is that Poznan and West Prussia were ethnically Polish, so these areas were given to Poland. Remember that Germany, Russia and Austria had gobbled up Poland at the end of the 18th century. It's obvious then that if the Poles were to be given their national sovreignity back they were going to have to be given the lands claimed by these countries. That's exactly what happened, Poland was re-created from land previously claimed by Russia, Austria and Germany. To maintain that Poland should have been required to enter into negotiations with Germany regarding the status of Danzig, West Prussia and Poznan you might as well claim that the Poles should also have allowed themselves to be sued by the Austrians over the restoration of Galacia and by the Russians over the status of the rest of Poland. Really Ned, why do you hate the Poles so much?

Second, don't blame Wilson for the more draconian measures of the Verrsaille treaty. He tried to forge a more lenient treaty, but he was but one of many. I've done a bit of research on this subject. Initially hailed as a voice for progress and democracy at the confernece, when the people of the allied nations got a full ear of his plans for post-war Europe there was a tremendous outcry by the public and the press. Even if some of his fellow delegated might have been sympathetic with his pleas for moderation, which they were not, it would have been politically impossible for them to go along with his "no penalty, no indemnity" plans.

Third, the state of mind of Germans in the early 1940s was such that some regular German forces actually became intent on competing with the SS Einsatzgruppen regarding the extermination of undesirables in eastern europe. Army Group South was particularily notorious in this respect, but there were others.

Hitler did not ask for the return of West Prussia. He wanted a RR to East Prussia.

He wanted an autobahn corridor to Danzig. (Think of the Palestinians demand for the same between the West Bank and Gaza.)

He wanted Danzig back. It was German.

As to Silesia, North Silesia was highly German, voted to stay with Germany, and was forced to go to Poland anyway by the French occuppiers.

The central problem with Versailles in regard to drawing lines on maps is not that they gave ethnic non German peoples their own states, they gave these new states German-occuppied lands as well.

BTW, back to the Jews, why didn't they get their own state as well.? They had a majority at least in some areas of Poland. Wasn't this ever considered? (I suspect it was considered but rejected as (most?) Jews wanted Palestine to be their homeland, not Poland.)

And, Molly, you did quote me on the Jews of Poland above. I asked a question about whether the Soviets took over Jewish- occuppied Poland. I didn't know the answer. Which is why I asked.

The answer I got is that the Jews lived in German-occuppied Poland. This answer was only half true. So it was not me that was lying in this thread about this matter.

Moreover, the problem with your thesis about WWII being about the Jews is that you supply no evidence that either Britain or France gave one wit about them. Germany for sure, but that is not why they invaded Poland. Poland was all about the corridor, Danzig and the RR to the east, i.e., Versailles.

As to WWI, you do not quote my concessions (made to others) that there was no secret alliance. It was the treaty of 1839 that coordinated Britain and Belgium. I agreed with you that the resumption of unrestricted warfare was the proximate cause of America's DOW on Germany.

You act as if I don't listen to the arguments of others and acknowledge merit when they make good ones. The stubborn one here and in other threads is you, molly. You never concede any points and when trapped, you simply start asking questions and for more "proof" despite the fact that the whole argument is about previously stated or given facts, supported when necessary. Trying discuss anything with you is more that annoying.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
I'll add just a few points here.
The treaty of Versaille attempted to follow ethnograhic principles when it redrew the maps of Europe.

If this were completely true, then shouldn't the German Austrians have been allowed to unify with the rest of Germany, and shouldn't Alsace have been retained by Germany? The Germans definately had some legitimate "national self determination" based gripes after Versailles.

[ElTigre]

Originally posted by Ned


Hitler did not ask for the return of West Prussia. He wanted a RR to East Prussia.

He wanted an autobahn corridor to Danzig. (Think of the Palestinians demand for the same between the West Bank and Gaza.)

He wanted Danzig back. It was German.

He wanted only a RR corridor, no Autobahn. Danzig and a railway line - is this reason enough to go to war, Ned? Also consider the treaty Germany had signed with Poland in 1934. Remember: international treaties cannot be "canceled" before they expire, you have to break them.

As to Silesia, North Silesia was highly German, voted to stay with Germany, and was forced to go to Poland anyway by the French occuppiers.

There is no "North Silesia". You are talking about Upper Silesia, which is the western part of Silesia. And you're wrong: the areas which voted to stay with Germany where split off and joined the Reich. Only areas with a Polish majority came to Poland.

BTW, back to the Jews, why didn't they get their own state as well.? They had a majority at least in some areas of Poland. Wasn't this ever considered? (I suspect it was considered but rejected as (most?) Jews wanted Palestine to be their homeland, not Poland.)

You're mixing religious and ethnic criteria here. Not all Polish Jews wanted to emigrate to Palestine, and even fewer wanted a separate Jewish state on Polish territory. Many Jews though of themselves as Poles (or Germans, or Frenchmen, ...) first and were rather patriotic about their nationality. If you apply your faulty logic to Germany, Versailles should have created a Catholic and a Protestant Germany after 1918. However the idea was to create nations based on nationality, and as such the criteria "religion" was of secondary importance.

Moreover, the problem with your thesis about WWII being about the Jews is that you supply no evidence that either Britain or France gave one wit about them. Germany for sure, but that is not why they invaded Poland. Poland was all about the corridor, Danzig and the RR to the east, i.e., Versailles.

Can you blame Poland for not being willing to compromise after what happened to Czechoslovakia (minus Sudetenland) in March 1939? A German corridor to Danzig and the occupation of this city by German troops would have seriously weakened the Polish defenses. Don't you think there's a connection here?

I still like to hear your opinion on the Hossbach Memo which Molly quoted. This is a key document for historians, as it proves that Hitler did indeed plan a major European war years before WW2 started.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hossbach_Memorandum

Another piece of evidence would be the Four Years Plan (1936), which aimed at preparing Germany for a major war in 1940. It was quite successful, but German rearmament happened in such a wreckless way that Germany was faced with an economic collapse in 1939/1940 should this war NOT happen. In other words, Hitler needed a war (and the resulting spoils of war) in order to avoid an economic breakdown:

Commenting in early 1937 on Goring's Four Year Plan for economic self-sufficiency, Roberts had presciently predicted the inevitability of either war or Hitler's fall from power. " There are 34 vital materials without which a nation cannot live, and unfortunately, Germany is worse off than any other great state insofar as these are concerned," he observed. "Whereas the British Empire is largely dependent on outside sources for only nine of these, Germany has only two in ample quantities-potash and coal. That means she must turn to the foreigner for all of her supplies of 26 of these and for part of six more. Yet this is the Power that sees fit to launch a plan for complete self sufficiency. It is ludicrous, unless she looks forward to obtaining control of the vast raw materials of central Europe or the lands beyond the Ukraine by some adventurous foreign policy...That is (Hitler's) basic dilemma. If he persists in the (economic) policies he has enunciated, he plunges Europe into war; if he abandons them, he can no longer maintain his position within Germany."

It's not that Hitler lacked contrary advice. Kershaw tells us that in October 1935 Price Commissioner Carl Goerdeler sent Hitler in October, 1935, "a devastating analysis of Germany's economic position." According to Kershaw, Goerdeler "favored a return to market economy, a renewed emphasis upon exports, and a corresponding reduction in the rearmament drive-in his view at the root of the economic problems...If things carried on as they were, only a hand-to-mouth existence would be possible after January 1936." But Goerdeler was ignored and later dismissed. Instead, Germany reoccupied the Rhineland, to widespread popular acclaim, and Goring unveiled his Four Year Plan, putting the economy firmly on a war footing.

Hitler himself apparently never had a clue that the economic policies he had followed for the first three years of his regime were responsible for his production problems. By 1936, Kershaw makes clear, Hitler believed his own press clippings regarding his economic acumen. Thus, for Hitler, the food crisis only confirmed his preconceptions. In the secret memorandum on which Goring's Four Year Plan was based, Hitler wrote, "We are overpopulated and cannot feed ourselves from our own resources. The solution ultimately lies in extending the living space of our people, that is, in extending the sources of its raw materials and foodstuffs." That is, the problem is not my fault and the answer is war, not economic reform.

http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/nazi.htm

This is not the 'usual' German talk about revising the Treaty of Versailles, Ned. This is an outline for the creation of a vast German Empire, based on the ruins of Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland, and extending wide into eastern Europe.

[ElTigre]

Originally posted by Wycoff

If this were completely true, then shouldn't the German Austrians have been allowed to unify with the rest of Germany,

Yes.

and shouldn't Alsace have been retained by Germany?

No. Mainly French (French speaking).

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by ElTigre
No. Mainly French (French speaking).

There were areas of Alsace (especially along the Rhein) there were at least as culturally German as they were French. It was indisputedly German until the mid-seventeenth century, and still had a significant German speaking population in the 1860s. Even today, Alsatian toponyms are Germannic. It's telling that, after the conclusion of WW1, the French conquered the temporarily independent Alsace and then refused to give the Alsatians a referendum as to whether they wanted to be part of France.

[ElTigre]

Originally posted by Wycoff

There were areas of Alsace (especially along the Rhein) there were at least as culturally German as they were French. It was indisputedly German until the mid-seventeenth century,

It was part of the German Empire, as was northern Italy, the Low Countries, Bohemia and Hungary. That doesn't mean that it was German.

and still had a significant German speaking population in the 1860s.

Not German speaking, Alsatian speaking.

Even today, Alsatian toponyms are Germannic.

Alsatian isn't a German dialect, although it is closely related to German - but so is Dutch. That doesn't mean that both areas are German.

It's telling that, after the conclusion of WW1, the French conquered the temporarily independent Alsace and then refused to give the Alsatians a referendum as to whether they wanted to be part of France.

1. The French occupied Alsace-Lorraine when an Alsace Soviet Republic began to form besides the legal government in Strasbourg - I can hardly blame them for that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alsace_Soviet_Republic

2. Woodrow Wilson did indeed insist on a separate Alsatian state directly after WW1, but more for a technical, legal reason: Alsace-Lorraine hadn't been a state within the German Empire, it had been an Imperial Province, governed directly from Berlin. The creation of an Alsatian state was meant to compensate for this democratic deficit before Alsace would join France. Woodrow Wilson never had an independent Alsace in mind, in fact it is mentioned in the Fourteen Points that it should be returned to France:

8. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.

Furthermore, after 1871 the German (Prussian) government itself didn't think that Alsace-Lorraine was predominantly German. For several years the area was kept under some kind of military rule, and only in 1911 it gained a small amount of autonomy - much less than all other German states. Until 1918 it was more or less a territory governed by a (Prussian) viceregent from Berlin. There was a large amount of tension between the population and the German government, especially the (Prussian) troops stationed in the area, as the Zabern Affaire in 1911 shows:

Zabern Affair. Saverne (German Zabern) is a town in Alsace brought into prominence by a series of disgraceful acts on the part of the military garrison against the civilian population. Of those acts the one that excited the widest Interest and indignation was the wounding of a lame cobbler by a young lieutenant named För8tner because of “contemptuous cries,” though the mayor asserted It was only the children who had jeered the officer. Förstner’s unpopularity had arisen from an overzealous espousal of his superior officer’s contempt for the civilian population and his Instructions to his command that if they stabbed an Alsatian who insulted them they would not only go unpunished but receive a reward. Even in Germany public feeling seemed outraged. The Reichstag passed a vote of censure, the Chancellor, perhaps unwillingly, disclosing the real policy of the authorities in Alsace-Lorraine by publicly declaring that “no progress could be made in Alsace-Lorraine unless they abandoned the fruitless attempt to turn the South Germans of the Reichslaud into North German Prussians.” -The obnoxious garrison was transferred to another station. Forstner was sentenced by court-martial to detention for a short period. His promotion, however, soon followed and stands as evidence to the disregard of the military for civilian rights and opinion, an attitude that is again Illustrated by the protest of Dr. Jagow, the military president of Berlin, against even the light sentence imposed on Förstner. See Alsace-Lorraine; Luxemberg, Rosa; Militarism

http://www.ww1accordingtobob.com/cyclopedia/war-cyclopedia-z/

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by ElTigre
It was part of the German Empire, as was northern Italy, the Low Countries, Bohemia and Hungary. That doesn't mean that it was German.

IIRC, it was considered a German part of the German empire. It was culturally similar to Switzerland and Baden, both of which were unquestionably considered German.

Not German speaking, Alsatian speaking. Alsatian isn't a German dialect, although it is closely related to German - but so is Dutch. That doesn't mean that both areas are German.

Alsatian is closely related to Swiss German and Franconian German. I'll leave it to the linguistic experts to definitively argue between the distinctions between very closely related languages and dialects of the same language, but from my understanding there are good arguments for either approach to Alsatian. Frisian and Bavaria are both considered German, but I don't think that a person speaking Frisian would be able to understand a person speaking Bavarian very well. Maybe I'm wrong.

As an aside, maybe Dutch would be considered a dialect of German had the Netherlands been unable to enforce and maintain their independence.

Woodrow Wilson never had an independent Alsace in mind, in fact it is mentioned in the Fourteen Points that it should be returned to France

The fact that Wilson wanted Alsace returned to France isn't surprising, but it doesn't help an argument that Alsace was not German (or to but it more precisely, it doesn't help with the argument that the German claim on Alsace was as valid as the French claim on Alsace). Wilson never intended national self-determination to apply to Germans.

Furthermore, after 1871 the German (Prussian) government itself didn't think that Alsace-Lorraine was predominantly German. For several years the area was kept under some kind of military rule, and only in 1911 it gained a small amount of autonomy - much less than all other German states. Until 1918 it was more or less a territory governed by a (Prussian) viceregent from Berlin. There was a large amount of tension between the population and the German government, especially the (Prussian) troops stationed in the area, as the Zabern Affaire in 1911 shows

I've always thought that the problems stemmed more from resentment of being ruled by Prussians rather than anti-German resentment per se. There was undoubtedly a significant population of Alsatians who considered themselves French (either because they were culturally assimilated or because they were French people who had moved there from other parts of France during the time France ruled Alsace) and as such did not want to be included in a unified Germany, but there was also a substantial population who considered themselves to be Germannic. They just didn't like the Prussians (I imagine that the Bavarians would have disliked direct Prussian rule as much as the Alsatians did)

Overall, I think that Germany had as valid of a claim on Alsace as France had. It was a border region where the cultures blended, but judging from the culture, the prevalent types of wine in the region, the nation of the Alsatian language/dialect, and the toponyms found throughout Alsace , Alsace still had a very stong Germannic element. Maybe it should have been made into an indepedent state like Luxemburg, but I don't agree that it was clearly French in character in 1648, 1870, or 1918. Germany is always treated as having been the villian when it annexed Alsace-Lorraine. I think that the annexation of Lorraine was hard to justify in the terms of national unity, but the annexation of Alsace was justifiable.

[ElTigre]

Very good points, Wycoff.

I still think that Alsace was more French than German in 1918, and was about to reply to your arguments and bolster my own, but I think we both made our position clear, and actually we aren't that far apart. So I suggest we agree to disagree. Everyone else reading this thread will be able to form his own opinion based on the arguments that have been posted.

We probably both agree that the lack of a referendum in 1919 is lamentable - you because you think that it would have been the only way to decide whether Alsace should remain with Germany or not, and I think it would have proven that Alsace was a mainly French area, and that the annexation by France was justified.

Should most readers agree with you that the annexation as it happened was unjustified - well, look at my location field, I'm not going to lose much sleep about it.