OMG - Pat Buchanan: "Did Hitler Want War?"

[DCSaints_fan]

And how may WW2 be "the mortal blow to our civilization"? :confused:

Because it led to evil things like desegration, multi-culturalism and race mixing.

[SnyderShrugged]

strange and troubling words from Buchanan

[Toe Jam]

Hitler's biggest mistake was invading the Soviet Union. hitler should of concentrated his forces in the Balkans and North Africa as well as securing his borders

Hitler's biggest mistake was thinking that everything he believed was morally right.

Ever read Mein Kampf? Holy crap. I'm telling you.. it's spooky. Dude was a genius but extremely twisted.

A nutcase.

[DCSaints_fan]

Hitler's biggest mistake was invading the Soviet Union. hitler should of concentrated his forces in the Balkans and North Africa as well as securing his borders

I wish I had "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" on hand. it covers all this in detail. From what I remember, Hitler wanted a war no later than 1943. Germany had embarked on a re-armeament program since the early 30s and had a considerable lead over her European neighbors. That lead could be erased in time though, as they started to re-arm themselves. Thus, Hitler felt a sense of urgency to achieve his objectives soon, while Germany still had an advantage in arms.

[ALLWORLD]

Hitler's biggest mistake was thinking that everything he believed was morally right.

Ever read Mein Kempf? Holy crap. I'm telling you.. it's spooky. Dude was a genius but extremely twisted.

A nutcase.

any relation to Mein Kampf?? lol j/k

good read??

[NavyDave]

I believe his central thesis is that the West could have kept out of the war, and the outcome would be much less bloody, if Great Britain had not guaranteed Poland's border. I don't think its likely. Although Hitler was fairly neutral towards Great Britain(even consdering an alliance with them prior to 1939), and a "lebensraum" in the East was his primary objectives, Hitler would not have let Alsace go, which likely meant with France, and by extension, Great Britain. Buchanan downplays this aspect.

Historians did point out that he wanted to avoid a confrontation with the USA (waiting to bide his time until after he had Europe under his boot) and initially we had a blind eye, then a ship with Americans on it was sunk and I'm sure that monster went oh snap.

Whether Adolph wanted war or not it was a good thing that we were involved. A shame that there are people who don't see Islamic terrorism having the potential to be the same global threat.

[Burgold]

very true.

I would be willing to say no Danzig issue = no hitler rise to power.

I don't think that's true at all. The economic conditions in Germany following WWI led to Hitler's popularity as much as anything. There were quite a few factors that led to Hitler becoming popular and almost all of them made a World War inevitable.

[Toe Jam]

any relation to Mein Kampf?? lol j/k

good read??

Sorry about the spelling.

Yes, it is. I tried to read it in seventh grade but it was a little too much for me. Didn't understand much of it.

Took it on again two years ago. It's well worth it. You really get to delve into the mind behind the madman.

Of course, I'm into that kind of stuff. You may not be.

[ALLWORLD]

Sorry about the spelling.

Yes, it is. I tried to read it in seventh grade but it was a little too much for me. Didn't understand much of it.

Took it on again two years ago. It's well worth it. You really get to delve into the mind behind the madman.

Of course, I'm into that kind of stuff. You may not be.

I'm about to deploy again, got another year of nothing...

[Predicto]

Sorry about the spelling.

Yes, it is. I tried to read it in seventh grade but it was a little too much for me. Didn't understand much of it.

Took it on again two years ago. It's well worth it. You really get to delve into the mind behind the madman.

Of course, I'm into that kind of stuff. You may not be.

You are a better man that I am.

I'm a WWII buff. Read literally dozens of books about it. I've read biographies of all the major players, books on all the major battles, analysis of the causes and effect. I even read Goebbel's personal diaries.

And I could not slog through Mein Kampf. I just go on summaries and excerpts.

[wantarace17]

I wish I had "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" on hand. it covers all this in detail. From what I remember, Hitler wanted a war no later than 1943. Germany had embarked on a re-armeament program since the early 30s and had a considerable lead over her European neighbors. That lead could be erased in time though, as they started to re-arm themselves. Thus, Hitler felt a sense of urgency to achieve his objectives soon, while Germany still had an advantage in arms.

I actually have that book.

[techboy]

I don't think that's true at all. The economic conditions in Germany following WWI led to Hitler's popularity as much as anything. There were quite a few factors that led to Hitler becoming popular and almost all of them made a World War inevitable.

While we were in Germany, one of the absolute best things we saw was the Nazi Documentation Center. It's at the old Nuremberg Rally Grounds (you can still walk out to the famous podium), and it documents in meticulous detail Hitler's rise to power, focusing on the reactions of the German people and how and why they got swept up in the movement. The subtitle of the museum is "Fascination and Terror".

It's top notch, with scads of videos and primary source documents, and technologically slick, with things like audioguides that automatically turn on and play the audio in the needed language when you're close to a video screen.

It's not really about the war, or the Holocaust (though those things are mentioned). Instead, it focuses entirely on Hitler's rise and fall. Probably the best part is the hour long video at the end with first hand accounts from Germans at the Rally Grounds.

I highly recommend it.

In any case, it's very clear to me that Hitler's rise to power had little to do with Danzig, and WWII would have happened regardless.

[DCsportsfan53]

One of the biggest strategic blunders in the history of the world. No doubt.

I cringe to think how differently that war could've ended up had he not let his ego get the better of him and simply focused on finishing off Britain with everything he had. Britain was ripe for the picking, might be a very different world had that happened.

[Burgold]

The best thing for the world was that Hitler was a hypochondriac and began taking thirty meds a day including fairly large doses of cocaine. I believe that is in part responsible for his strategic deteriorization. The downside was that the drugs also made him crazier and more dangerous, but it also provided an instability which helped him fall. I think he would have failed eventually regardless, but the war would have been even bloodier and messier as hard as that is to believe.

[Mad Mike]

Now THAT is what I call bat **** crazy. :doh:

[Predicto]

I cringe to think how differently that war could've ended up had he not let his ego get the better of him and simply focused on finishing off Britain with everything he had. Britain was ripe for the picking, might be a very different world had that happened.

Failing to invade Britain directly was not his real mistake. Such an invasion would have been disasterous due to the strength of the British Navy. The transports would be sunk, and it would not be possible to supply the few soldiers that made it to Britain. Absent total air superiority (which Germany could not achieve), it would have been a bloodbath.

Actually, failure to put in the resources to conquer an virtually undefended Egypt was Hitler's real strategic mistake. Britain had only one division defending Egypt and the Suez canal. That could have been defeated in a week if Hitler had supported Rommel at all.

So, imagine. Egypt falls and Britain loses the Suez canal. The British Navy can't get through, Britain is cut off from India, Malta falls, and the Mediterranean becomes an Axis lake. There is nothing to stop Germany from marching in and taking all the oil in Iraq and Iran away from the Brits. Turkey and Greece would capitulate without a fight. Now Britain's Navy has no oil, while Germany has all the oil it will ever need.

When the sucker punch comes for the Soviets, the attack comes from the south as well as the west. The Soviets lose the Caucasus oil fields in the first frew days. Stalin cannot move his production capacity back behind the mountains to the southeast - well fueled and supplied Nazi tanks are already there. No fuel, no fool, no productive capacity, no way to delay things and get supplied by America - the Soviet Union falls.

There would not be a thing that Britain or America could do about it. Germany and its vassals would be the undisputed ruler of all land from the border of Spain to the Caspian Sea, from the top of Norway to Ethopia. The productive capacity of several hundred million people, all the food and oil they could ever need, in a contiguous and easily defended empire.

That was the real way Hitler could have won.

[JonsieRB34]

Unfreaking real. I guess Hitler never wrote Mein Kampf. I guess "liebenstraum" was just a myth. I guess the carefully planned out invasion of Poland was just a response to the Polish provocation of not wanting to be dismembered and annexed like Czechoslovakia just had been. I guess overrunning France and Belgium and Holland and Denmark and Norway and such was just a side effect of the Polish aggression. He never wanted war. He was just misunderstood.

Just a correction: Liebenstraum is more closely translated to German as "loving dream", which is something different than lebensraum, which means "living room". This was the notion of territorial expansion by the Germans, which is clearly what you describe.

[zoony]

You are a better man that I am.

I'm a WWII buff. Read literally dozens of books about it. I've read biographies of all the major players, books on all the major battles, analysis of the causes and effect. I even read Goebbel's personal diaries.

And I could not slog through Mein Kampf. I just go on summaries and excerpts.

interesting - I'm a bit of a WWII buff too, and I was recently in a book store and noticed several copies of Mein Kampf. Thought about buying it out of morbid curiosity. It's that bad, huh?

And where did you get a copy of Goebbel's diaries? That sounds interesting.

[Henry]

Hitler never thought Britain would be much of a problem. He assumed they would either negotiate a peace or continue to fight a 'phony war' without posing him much of a threat. Hitler's main goal was always the USSR. He just didn't expect Churchill to be so darn stubborn.

I don't think Buchanan thought enough about what he said before he said it. He's basically suggesting MORE appeasement was the right way to go. In my opinion that's patently insane.

[PeterMP]

Failing to invade Britain directly was not his real mistake. Such an invasion would have been disasterous due to the strength of the British Navy. The transports would be sunk, and it would not be possible to supply the few soldiers that made it to Britain. Absent total air superiority (which Germany could not achieve), it would have been a bloodbath.

Actually, failure to put in the resources to conquer an virtually undefended Egypt was Hitler's real strategic mistake. Britain had only one division defending Egypt and the Suez canal. That could have been defeated in a week if Hitler had supported Rommel at all.

So, imagine. Egypt falls and Britain loses the Suez canal. The British Navy can't get through, Britain is cut off from India, Malta falls, and the Mediterranean becomes an Axis lake. There is nothing to stop Germany from marching in and taking all the oil in Iraq and Iran away from the Brits. Turkey and Greece would capitulate without a fight. Now Britain's Navy has no oil, while Germany has all the oil it will ever need.

When the sucker punch comes for the Soviets, the attack comes from the south as well as the west. The Soviets lose the Caucasus oil fields in the first frew days. Stalin cannot move his production capacity back behind the mountains to the southeast - well fueled and supplied Nazi tanks are already there. No fuel, no fool, no productive capacity, no way to delay things and get supplied by America - the Soviet Union falls.

There would not be a thing that Britain or America could do about it. Germany and its vassals would be the undisputed ruler of all land from the border of Spain to the Caspian Sea, from the top of Norway to Ethopia. The productive capacity of several hundred million people, all the food and oil they could ever need, in a contiguous and easily defended empire.

That was the real way Hitler could have won.

This is a GREAT post. You see people talking about Hitler "finishing" Britian via a direct invasion of Britian, and I just cringe. Moving of mechanized forces was not as well established as now. Crossing the English channel and creating a successful invasion against a quality Navy and a hostile native population would not have been trivial.

If Hitler had tried, it is likely THAT is what people would talk about as his down fall.

[DCSaints_fan]

Failing to invade Britain directly was not his real mistake. Such an invasion would have been disasterous due to the strength of the British Navy. The transports would be sunk, and it would not be possible to supply the few soldiers that made it to Britain. Absent total air superiority (which Germany could not achieve), it would have been a bloodbath.

Actually, failure to put in the resources to conquer an virtually undefended Egypt was Hitler's real strategic mistake. Britain had only one division defending Egypt and the Suez canal. That could have been defeated in a week if Hitler had supported Rommel at all.

So, imagine. Egypt falls and Britain loses the Suez canal. The British Navy can't get through, Britain is cut off from India, Malta falls, and the Mediterranean becomes an Axis lake. There is nothing to stop Germany from marching in and taking all the oil in Iraq and Iran away from the Brits. Turkey and Greece would capitulate without a fight. Now Britain's Navy has no oil, while Germany has all the oil it will ever need.

When the sucker punch comes for the Soviets, the attack comes from the south as well as the west. The Soviets lose the Caucasus oil fields in the first frew days. Stalin cannot move his production capacity back behind the mountains to the southeast - well fueled and supplied Nazi tanks are already there. No fuel, no fool, no productive capacity, no way to delay things and get supplied by America - the Soviet Union falls.

There would not be a thing that Britain or America could do about it. Germany and its vassals would be the undisputed ruler of all land from the border of Spain to the Caspian Sea, from the top of Norway to Ethopia. The productive capacity of several hundred million people, all the food and oil they could ever need, in a contiguous and easily defended empire.

That was the real way Hitler could have won.

Thats a bit of a stretch. I think had Rommel been given more support, with Barbarossa called off or at least postponed, he could have taken Alexandria, Cairo and the Suez in '41. But the British had troops in India, Iran and Iraq which could have been moved and held off a German force invading through Palestine.

Even if Iraq was taken, the oil pipleine from the Iraq oil fields ran south to Basra and Kuwait, not east to Palestine. The British could have sabotaged the fields like the Rusisans did in Maikop, and it would take months to get them back online. And the Germans don't have the tankers to transport oil from the Middle East, anyway.

I was in the middle of building a turn based strategy game that modelled exactly this scenario(really, any scenario you wanted involving the period), but then I found a job. Now I'll have to go back and finsih it off .

[mardi gras skin]

I was in the middle of building a turn based strategy game that modelled exactly this scenario(really, any scenario you wanted involving the period), but then I found a job. Now I'll have to go back and finsih it off .

Sounds great! Axis and Allies is my favorite board game of all time.

[Predicto]

Thats a bit of a stretch. I think had Rommel been given more support, with Barbarossa called off or at least postponed, he could have taken Alexandria, Cairo and the Suez in '41. But the British had troops in India, Iran and Iraq which could have been moved and held off a German force invading through Palestine.

As I understand it, Britain had lots of troops in India, but not much at all in Palestine, Iraq and Transjordan. India was a long way away, and even if the Indian could get there in time, those troops lacked the armor and artillery to hold off fast moving Panzer divisions on the open plain. IMO, Palestine, Transjordan, and Iraq could not be defended at all once Egypt fell. Manwhile, the Vichy French already controlled Syria and Lebanon. No problem there.

Iran was already openly pro-German. It took an invasion by the Soviets in Brits in late 1941 to open a supply line from the south to the Soviets.

I can't see how the Brits could have stopped any of this in 1940, once Egypt fell.

Even if Iraq was taken, the oil pipleine from the Iraq oil fields ran south to Basra and Kuwait, not east to Palestine. The British could have sabotaged the fields like the Rusisans did in Maikop, and it would take months to get them back online. And the Germans don't have the tankers to transport oil from the Middle East, anyway.

Why would they need tankers? They already were in the process of controlling or conquering Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, all the Baltic states but Greece. Turkey, now surrounded by far superior German forces, would not be able to resist a demand to allow passage of troops and oil across their territory. The oil would go overland. Plus, the Germans did not need the oil right away. They were already getting oil from the Soviets and Romanians. What they needed was to deny the British Navy their source of oil. After that they would have plenty of time to repair any oil field sabotage before striking at the Soviets from the West and the South. Again, IMO.

This map (although from 1941, not 1940) shows how easy it would be.

http://astro.temple.edu/~barbday/Europe66/resources/axiseurope1941.htm

I was in the middle of building a turn based strategy game that modelled exactly this scenario(really, any scenario you wanted involving the period), but then I found a job. Now I'll have to go back and finsih it off .

That sounds cool as heck.

[No_Pressure]

If Hitler was smart he would have stopped after he took Czechoslovakia and told all his people to go home and have 10 kids each. I know he was afraid of other nations surpassing him but if he set his timetable for war towards the 60's or so they could have had millions more soldiers, and interesting new technology.

I suppose he was afraid that either some other nation would come up with something to trump his forces (like the atom bomb), or perhaps that he would not live long enough to set his plans in motion the way he wanted them.

Who remembers those Avalon Hill games? I love "The Russian Campaign" often when I play it it strategically plays out exactly like it did in WW2. The Germans push far into Soviet territory the first two years, the Russians can only retreat to defend naturally defensible positions and major cities to wait for reinforcements and cold weather.

The last time I played it against my cousin he made a push for Leningrad quickly which I barely defended, and with Moscow heavily defended, he set his sights on the south. He moved forces quickly through the rail lines and sent a huge attack to the south, driving towards the oil there. On my next turn I barely managed to move enough forces to make a straight defensive line on the Volga river. He needed to attack my stronghold in Stalingrad to break my hold on the region and it's rail lines. I barely made it through the summer and fall months of his attacks and then the winter set in and I managed to take out some major units of his. We were amazed that all the logical strategic decisions for us to make ended up being almost the same as WW2.

[zoony]

You can point to a lot of things and say 'this is where Hitler went wrong'... but ultimately, it just comes back to the fact that the man was insane.

Sure, a rational planner would not have opened a two front war. Certainly wouldn't have declared war on the United States. And would have found a way to at least tolerate Great Britain while kicking commy-ass (or vice-versa)

But then, a rational person wouldn't have done anything Hitler did.

.....