Sealion, Anglo-German Alliance

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
are you sure that his admiration of the Brit empire didnt have a racial basis?

After the conquest of England, the British Empire would be apportioned as a gigantic world-wide estate in bankruptcy of 40 million square kilometres.

In this bankrupt estate there would be for Russia access to the ice-free and really open ocean.

Thus far, a minority of 45 million Englishmen had ruled the 600 million inhabitants of the British Empire.

He was about to crush this minority... Under these circumstances there arose world-wide perspectives...

All the countries which could possibly be interested in the bankrupt estate would have to stop all controversies among themselves and concern themselves exclusively with the partition of the British Empire.

Hitler to Molotov, Berlin 12th November 1940

His views on Britain's government and who ran the country:

If in this war everything points to the fact that gold is fighting against work, Capitalism against peoples, and Recation against the progress of humanity, then work, the peoples and progress will be victorious. Even the support of the Jewish race will not avail the others.

However, who are the rulers of Britain today ? They are the same old gang who were warmongering before the Great War, the same Churchill who was the vilest agitator amongst them during the Great War...

Hitler, speech on 10th December 1940 at the Berlin armaments works of Rheinmetall-Borsig

socialists would roll over about as easily as their German counterparts had.

This is somewhat contradicted by your saying immediately afterwards:

Socialists in Germany had been somewhat harder to roll over

The Socialists and the Communists had both fought the Nazis in elections and when also necessary, on the streets.

Don't forget that from 1933 onwards the powers of a terror state had been used against the German Socialists and Communists, with the eager support of local police (in places such as Bavaria), the Prussian Secret State Police and the S.A. .

Despite this Otto Wells (a Socialist) could say:

"We German Social Democrats pledge ourselves solemnly in this historic hour to the principles of humanity and justice, of freedom and socialism. No enabling act can give you power to destroy ideas which are eternal and indestructible."

Hitler's repsonse was typical:

"You are no longer needed! - The star of Germany will rise and yours will sink! Your death knell has sounded!"

March 1933, the Enabling Act goes before the Reichstag

Ethnic minorities?

Indeed- with Europe's oldest Chinatown, the United Kingdom had a long history of non-European immigration and shock! horror! miscegenation. From Limehouse to Liverpool, Cardiff to Camberwell, white folks had been marrying Somalis, Yemenis, Chinese, Indians and so on for generations.

Still, it would have kept Nazi racial ideologists and 'scientists' quite busy.

In terms of 'non-aryans" were brits in 1940 really more "mongrels" than Germans were? More blacks and asians maybe (though not many)

Err, given that Elizabeth I had complained about the number of 'blackamoors' in London in the 16th Century, I'm not sure how you come by that conclusion.

Liverpool for instance had had a resident African population in Bootle from the 1750s onward. Southwark had a noticeable resident black population from the 16th Century onwards:

Baptism of John Primero, a negro

Record from St. Giles's Church, Camberwell, 1607

London even had an Indian Communist M.P. in the 1920s:

In 2004, the Museum was given a small collection of photographs and a belt relating to Shapurji Saklatvala, who served as Communist MP for Battersea North in the 1920s. The Museum also holds a handful of Saklatvala election leaflets.

http://www.untoldlondon.org.uk/collections/SE000066.html

Mr. Saklatvala:

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


Mogrels? I dont think celtic, dutch, even Spanish admixtures would have bothered AH. In terms of 'non-aryans" were brits in 1940 really more "mongrels" than Germans were? More blacks and asians maybe (though not many) but fewer Jews and Roma and slavs. Heck, to be an aryan you only had to show aryan stock back two generations, unless you wanted to join the SS. To go back further would have uncovered too many Prussian aristos whos great grandfathers had married converted Jewish heiresses.

You have to remember that Hitler was pretty darned delusional when it came to race. While it is certain that the population of Germany has significant input from Slavs and Celts German racial theorists glossed over that. Regarding the English they could and often did swing whichever way the wind waw blowing. When Hitler was in one of his "Oh the Nazis and the Pommies should be friends" (sung to the tune of The Cowboys And The Farmers Should Be Friends ) the British were good Saxon cousins. When his mood swung the other day they were mogrels bred from a mix of white and dark stocks.

Regarding the seriousnesss of Hitler's military intentions towards Britain I don't think he ever really committed to the idea. While Goering assured him that the Luftwaffe would prevail over the RAF there were other equally serious problems. There wasn't sufficient time to construct invasion craft from scratch, so someone came up with a plan to convert Rhine river barges to ocean going landing craft. A really huge problem with this idea was that the German economy relied upon those craft to bulk transport strategic materials. Removing them would have seriously hampered the German economy. On top of that the German Navy was not enthusiastic about the idea. Had Hitler really cared about the plan he would have spent every waking moment breathing down the necks of those responsible for making invasion preparations. When the plans didn't go forward on schedule heads would have rolled ............ literally. The fact that no one died because the invasion didn't materialize is adequate proof that it wasn't a serious committment.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Barnabas
What I mean is stalin is no different than any great conqueror and pragmatic killer of millions like G Khan or the guy who unified China from antiquity or the history of mankind, while Hitler was something else, completely new, because of his racial ideology.
In comparison the crazyest things commies gave us was marxism materialsm applied to everything, history, linguistics etc, with Hitler anthropologists would still be measuring the skulls of poor dark people.

Now that I think of it better, had Hiter won, more people would have died probably, since he wanted to exterminate poles and ukrainians to repopulate the land with germans, germanising those lands, and who knows what would have happened in the rest of the world.The loss of germany had the immediate consequence of removing from the mainstream many racial beliefs.

If Hitler had won the Memphis Zoo of my childhood would still have "Colored" restrooms. Maybe.

[Cort Haus]

"Oh the Nazis and the Pommies should be friends"

Hitler was Australian? All these years I mis-read it as Austrian.

[lord of the mark]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by molly bloom

Hitler to Molotov, Berlin 12th November 1940

His views on Britain's government and who ran the country:

A. At that point Britain had NOT given in, and he had to deal with that reality.
B. Thats a letter to Molotov. You think hes gonna say that he really wants Germany to join him against Russia? You think Hitler was HONEST in his letters to Soviets between Sep 39 and June 41 (or at any other time, for that matter?)

This is somewhat contradicted by your saying immediately afterwards:

The socialists were harder to rollover THAN the bourgeois liberals, who pretty much all supported him in banning the Communists after the Reichstag fire.
They still rolled over.

The Socialists and the Communists had both fought the Nazis in elections and when also necessary, on the streets.

Don't forget that from 1933 onwards the powers of a terror state had been used against the German Socialists and Communists, with the eager support of local police (in places such as Bavaria), the Prussian Secret State Police and the S.A. .

Despite this Otto Wells (a Socialist) could say:

Hitler's repsonse was typical:


March 1933, the Enabling Act goes before the Reichstag

Once the Nazis had gained power, there was little effective resistance from the socialists. Im thinking rank and file voters, more than leaders.

Remember the point is what did AH think would have happend in the UK. Hed have had to be brutal on Labour party leaders to be sure. The rank and file, he would have expected, would have put up little fight once the Nazis were in power. Why would he have expected the brit working class to be a much bigger problem than the German working class?

Indeed- with Europe's oldest Chinatown, the United Kingdom had a long history of non-European immigration and shock! horror! miscegenation. From Limehouse to Liverpool, Cardiff to Camberwell, white folks had been marrying Somalis, Yemenis, Chinese, Indians and so on for generations.

Still, it would have kept Nazi racial ideologists and 'scientists' quite busy.

Err, given that Elizabeth I had complained about the number of 'blackamoors' in London in the 16th Century, I'm not sure how you come by that conclusion.

Liverpool for instance had had a resident African population in Bootle from the 1750s onward. Southwark had a noticeable resident black population from the 16th Century onwards:

Record from St. Giles's Church, Camberwell, 1607

Im not asking about 1585, or 1750, or 1607. Im asking about 1940, and Im asking COMPARED to Germany's very considerable populations of Jews, Roma, Poles, etc. IIUC Germany even had some non-whites too, though Im sure a tiny fraction of Britains.

London even had an Indian Communist M.P. in the 1920s:

Mazel Tov to London, but were his constituents mainly Indians? Germany, BTW, had a Jewish Foreign Minister in 1920, IIRC. Though Im sure the London Indian MP wasn't assasinated, as Walter Rathenau was.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by lord of the mark




Hitler to Molotov, Berlin 12th November 1940

His views on Britain's government and who ran the country:[/q]

A. At that point Britain had NOT given in, and he had to deal with that reality.

Yes, and ?

Thats a letter to Molotov.

No. It's a transcript of a meeting with Molotov.

You think hes gonna say that he really wants Germany to join him against Russia?

He's going to say whatever he wants the Russians to believe- this doesn't also mean that what he says to Molotov isn't also true.

There's a difference between hoodwinking the Russians into a state of security so deep that they ship train-loads of raw materials from Russia to Nazi Germany (supplies which are still crossing the border when Operation Barbarossa begins) and telling them what you believe. What's Molotov going to do ?

Ring up Chamberlain and say: 'Nyah! Hitler hates you really!'

You think Hitler was HONEST in his letters to Soviets between Sep 39 and June 41

He could be honest about his personal beliefs- as long as recounting those personal beliefs had no impact on the long range plan of duping the Soviets. After all, he'd ditched the anti-Communist, anti-Bolshevik rhetoric which had been a feature of his political career thus far- and he'd exhibited a different face to the different organisations which supported him in Germany- but this hardly means he's going to lie about his dislike of parliamentary democracy, capitalism and liberalism to the Soviets.

They (the Socialists) still rolled over.

That's twice you've said it. Could you demonstrate exactly what you mean ?

It's estimated that about 30 000 Socialists/Communists lost their lives a direct result of political opposition to the Nazis; despite this demonstration of the Nazi regime's willingness to exterminate the voice of opposition, the Socialists and Communists and continued to run an underground resistance in Germany and ran opposition from abroad- Willy Brandt opposed the regime from Norway and Sweden after life became too dangerous for him in Germany.

Once the Nazis had gained power, there was little effective resistance from the socialists. Im thinking rank and file voters, more than leaders.

See point above. It's easy to say....

Why would he have expected the brit working class to be a much bigger problem than the German working class?

I can't recall any great love for Herr Hitler in the working class of Great Britain. There were the obvious sympathisers- the likes of the Mitfords, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, assorted press barons and industrialists- but then the same was true of the United States where the likes of Henry Ford could be lavishly honoured by the Nazis with the Grand Cross of the Supreme Order of the German Eagle and Charles Lindbergh was a Hitler fan.

Why should the British working classes have had any love for a German invader ? And bear in mind that there had been no Nazi-style police state in the United Kingdom working to undermine the Socialist or trades union movements.

Im asking about 1940, and Im asking COMPARED to Germany's very considerable populations of Jews, Roma, Poles, etc.

Well, actually you're not asking, you're assuming. Since you haven't supplied any figures for the relevant populations of non-Germans in Germany (as determined by the Nazis) or the non-European and non-Gentiles in the United Kingdom.

Im not asking about 1585, or 1750, or 1607.

You might not be, but in a discussion about ethnic minorities I would have thought the antiquity of the relevant communities in the United Kingdom is quite germane- it shows the length of time they have been here, their acceptance and the possibilities for intermarriage between whites and non-whites for instance- which certainly did happen in Cardiff, South Shields and Limehouse.

After all, you said this:

In terms of 'non-aryans" were brits in 1940 really more "mongrels" than Germans were? More blacks and asians maybe (though not many)

without supplying any figures for Asians and blacks resident in Germany.

but fewer Jews

By the early 1880s, London's Jewish population had increased to 50 000, and as pogroms bit hard in Tsarist Russia, Jewish immigration increased.

Later, between 1933 and 1939 it's estimated half of Germany's Jewish population left- that's 250 000 spread between (mostly) the U.S., the U.K. and the Palestine Mandate.

fewer Roma and slavs

Anti-Roma laws were rescinded in Great Britain in the 18th Century. I don't have the figures for 1939 handy, but there's an estimated 90-100 000 Roma in the United Kingdom today.

The United Kingdom had welcomed quite a few Slavs- many Poles and Russians:

By 1901, 42 032 Russians and Poles were resident in Stepney- a figure exceeded by only five towns in Poland itself.

'London: A Social History' by Roy Porter

Finsbury and Clerkenwell were also 'Little Italies', with a Roman Catholic population of sufficient size to make Saints' Days parades a success.

Germany, BTW, had a Jewish Foreign Minister in 1920

I know. And Jewish financiers and department store owners and artists and writers and composers.

As had the United Kingdom- Marks & Spencer, Warburg's, Rothschilds', Reuter's, Tesco's...

The United Kingdom had had a Sephardic Jew as a Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1852, and Prime Minister in 1868.

Its first M.P. of Indian origins was in 1892- Dadabhai Naoroji.

Mongrels?

When an even so august an institution as the Bank Of England is a Scotsman's conception whose first Governor was of Huguenot extraction, then yes, I'd say we were a pretty mixed up bunch.

[Ecthy]

Mosaic time!

[Patroklos]

1) Did Hitler ever really intend to invade and conquer Britain? Or did he merely want to impress Britain enough in order to make it join him in a grand alliance?

I think he "wanted" to, what a feather in the cap for I guy playing risk in the map room of OKW, but the half-ass way it was prepared was due to everyone dragging their feet as the possibility because nonexistent, even to AH.

As far as an alliance, not going to happen and not even AH could have thought so. What AH wanted, and needed as events would show, was a free hand in the East without distractions.

How many divisions were kept in the West manning the coasts of Northern France, fighting the Brits in the Balkans/Crete/North Africa? What if Italy had not been completely mauled by Britain? What does complete commercial access to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic do for Germany? What if the the entire Luftwaffe would be concentrated on one front? Britain was the monkey on the back of the Wermacht, I honestly think Russia could have been knocked out if Britain had given in. And they knew that, so they didn't.

War trials simulated by Sandhurst projected that without air superiority, invading Wehrmacht forces would be delayed at around about the G.H.Q. line by the time the Royal Navy arrived from Scapa Flow to block supplies, and thus thwart the invasion.

Sortieing the fleet into the English Channel (into mind you, not through) would not be smart, though given the threat of invasion I bet it would be attempted. There are reasons the fleet was at Scapa Flow. Access to the North Sea and attempts to break the blockade, and immunity from air bombardment.

Putting the Home Fleet into the channel within complete operational range of every German airframe available would be stupid. The German's were lucky to get away with it with the PE and company, but that was a dash and a suprise one at that. I don't think the disruption to the lines of communication would be accomplished, ant the Royal Navy would be severely mauled.

[Saras]

Originally posted by Patroklos

Sortieing the fleet into the English Channel (into mind you, not through) would not be smart, though given the threat of invasion I bet it would be attempted. There are reasons the fleet was at Scapa Flow. Access to the North Sea and attempts to break the blockade, and immunity from air bombardment.

Putting the Home Fleet into the channel within complete operational range of every German airframe available would be stupid. The German's were lucky to get away with it with the PE and company, but that was a dash and a suprise one at that. I don't think the disruption to the lines of communication would be accomplished, ant the Royal Navy would be severely mauled.

May I venture that in a combined sortie by the home fleet and remnants (we assume RAF is "neutralised") of RAF RAF would achieve temporary air parity for long enough to "thwart" the invasion?

[Patroklos]

May I venture that in a combined sortie by the home fleet and remnants (we assume RAF is "neutralised") of RAF RAF would achieve temporary air parity for long enough to "thwart" the invasion?

If the Germans are on the ground in England then their southern most airfields are forfiet. Also, if an invasion of England is taking place, the RAF is kaput, I can't see an invasion happening without the goal being met first.

What is the steam time from Scapa Flow to the channel, two days? I did Faslane to the channel in one.

[Saras]

It feels awkward to argue with someone who has actual navy experience, but these things have never stopped me before, so:

I don't think it'd be so clear cut and turn-based, like, a) RAF is 100% destroyed b) Germany lands c) southern fields are forfeit d) RN sorties out of Scapa flow.

In all likelihood there'd be intel on imminent invasion, giving RN time to react and maneuver towards , and RAF would never be "100%" destroyed. It might be done with as an effective force, but in the defence of home islands a heroic last stand by the last 5 spitfires and 50 sopwith camels could be something the Brits would try, IMHO.

[Sandman]

Note that the UK was outproducing Germany in aircraft at this point.

[TheStinger]

I believe the war game analysed the scenario that the UK would end their cruisers and that they were prepared to take substantial loses.

They only needed to encounter the german supply fleet once and then it was game over for the invaders

[Dr Strangelove]

I thought that Germany had a Jewish population of about 3 or 4 million in 1933, so if half of that population had left by 1939, thats 1 1/2 to 2 millions to spread around Europe. Many of the Jews who left Germany were unable to take their money with them, so they were unable to get further than Poland or France. Many of the Jews who left Germany to escape Hitler wound up becoming his prisoners again when his conquering armies advanced.

Yes Benjamin D'Israeli was born Jewish, but he converted to the Church of England before he began his political career.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove

Yes Benjamin D'Israeli was born Jewish, but he converted to the Church of England before he began his political career.

He could hardly do much about looking like what a stereotypical Sephardic Jew was supposed to resemble, though, could he ?



Note also the decidely un- Anglo-Saxon name he kept too.

Compare Disraeli's visage (and name) with Rathenau's- who, by the way, as well as being assimilated himself, was also an avid proponent of Jewish assimilation into gentile German society.

I thought that Germany had a Jewish population of about 3 or 4 million in 1933

You're thinking of Poland's Jewish population. Germany had about half a million resident Jews in 1933- one per cent of the total population.

Both Richard Grunberger's 'A Social History Of The Third Reich' and Lucy Dawidowicz's 'The War Against The Jews 1933-1945' contain useful information on Germany's pre-1939 Jewish population and the latter discusses the Jewish populations of other European countries, their treatment and their eventual fates.