Pat Buchanan: Hitler just wanted peace, but Churchill wouldn't give it to him

[elfs]

A reader, who added only the comment, "...akpfthbll!", pointed me at Pat Buchanan's latest masterpiece, Did Hitler Want War?, in which he argues that Hitler didn't want a war, could have been negotiated with, and it was only Churchill's insistence on a military solution to Hitler's annexation of neighboring states that drove Hitler to begin the Holocaust. This follows on Pat's continued dismissal of the Holocaust as a significant historical event, and his use of Holocaust denialist "evidence" to bolster his dismissal.

I can't do it justice. Adam Serwer, though, wins the internet today with his headline, Pat Buchanan: Sotomayor? Racist. Hitler? Misunderstood.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Chamberlain, Churchill's pacifist predecessor, tried peace. Hitler shook his hand, then turned around and invaded Poland. Peace was doomed to failure.

You also can't claim the US could fight Japan without eventually dealing with Germany as well. Hitler didn't want war with the US, not until he had dealt with Europe... then who knows. I've also heard rightly or wrongly that the Nazis had the potential to make nuclear weapons, but didn't fund the project because they felt the war would be won or lost by the time the nukes were ready. If they had been given some breathing room after dealing with Britain and Russia, if indeed they succeeded, then they might well have started work on these. They were incidentally also very skilled in submarine warfare, this would probably make naval operations very difficult indeed. Add to this the free availability of ports from which to operate as well, if they had complete control of Europe, and freedom from air attacks on their industrial centres.

Any British person with any casual or passing interest in the world wars knows that they wouldn't have stopped, because they promised to stop several times and then carried on anyway in the belief that the other powers wouldn't have the guts to do anything about it. Equally the loss of Britain and the USSR would make staging an assault on German held territory much harder, since Britain made an almost perfectly placed base for the invasions.

[resonant.livejournal.com]

"Chamberlain, Churchill's pacifist predecessor"

Interestingly, that was more a deliberate facade than actuality. Britain's military was rather weak in the 1930s; Chamberlain talked peace, but drove a frantic pre-war arms buildup and civil-defense preparations. Britain may not have succeeded with any interventions prior to 1939. To quote Will Rogers, "Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock".

Harry Turtledove just released a new novel, "Hitler's War", about what would have happened if WWII started with the invasion of Czechoslovakia. Not sure how realistic it is yet (still reading).