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  1. #1
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    History coaching, WW2

    There are some persistent untruths out there on what and who caused the 2nd world war, so maybe we can fix them with facts of the era that have been concealed for a long time. You can confirm the quotes I'm going to present from many sources in the internet.

    From the statement of General Günther Blumentritt when interrogated at the Nuremberg trial about the general staff meeting where Hitler stated his reasons why he wanted the British to escape at Dunkirk.

    "Hitler then astonished us by speaking with admiration of the British Empire, of the necessity for its existence, and the civilization that Britain had brought into the world. He remarked with a shrug of the shoulders, that the creation of the Empire had been achieved by means that were often harsh, 'but where there is planing there are shavings flying.' He compared the British Empire with the Catholic Church—saying they were both essential elements of stability in the world. He said that all he wanted from Britain was that she should acknowledge Germany’s position on the continent. The return of Germany’s lost colonies would be desirable but not essential, and he would even offer to support Britain with troops if she should be involved in any difficulties anywhere."
    Boon Mee: 'Israel is the 51st State. De facto - but none the less, essentially part & parcel of the USA.'

  2. #2
    I am in Jail

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    Want it German European expansion and the invasion of Poland that caused the war ?

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fluke View Post
    Want it German European expansion and the invasion of Poland that caused the war ?
    Polish sources from the time suggest otherwise.

    On August 7, 1939 the 'Ilustrowany Kurjer' featured an article "which described with provocative effrontery how military units were continually foraying across the border into German territory in order to destroy military installations and to take weapons and tools of the German Wehrmacht back to Poland." Most Polish diplomats and politicians understood that Poland's actions would perforce lead to war. Foreign Minister Beck tenaciously pursued the plan of plunging Europe into another great war, since it would presumably result in territorial gains for Poland. He goes on to cite some 14 incidents where Polish soldiers aggressively crossed the border, destroying houses, shooting and killing German farmers and customs officers. One of them: "August 29th: State Police Offices in Elbing, Köslin and Breslau, Main Customs Office in Beuthen and Gleiwitz: Polish soldiers invade Reich German territory, attack against German customs house, shots taken at German customs officials, Polish machine guns stationed on Reich German territory."

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    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Britain and France drawing a line under Hitler's expansionism is what led to them declaring war on him (not that the cheese eating surrender monkeys contributed very much).

    But he did make a fatal mistake taking his foot off the gas at Dunkirk. Perhaps he was hoping Britain would just go home, lick their wounds and let him get on with it.

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    You are wasting your time giving Hitler quotes as he either lied, or was unable to discern truth from reality. e.g. " This is positively my last territorial demand." Last, my ass!!!

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    Thailand Expat Boon Mee's Avatar
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    Even Angela Merkel wouldn't agree with Rain on this subject. Desperate history revisionism me thinks.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rainfall
    Polish sources from the time suggest otherwise.
    Rewind a little further. What about Austria and Czechoslovakia?
    What about the alliance with Japan and the invasion of China?
    What about the alliance with Italy and the invasion of Ethiopia?

    These take-overs were the triggers to war.

    There was a lot more to it than simply the invasion of Poland. This was the line drawn that Hitler was told not to cross. He ignored this warning and the rest is history.

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    Certainly from what I can recollect from my History lessons-
    Britain entered the war with Germany after they invaded Poland and refused to withdraw their troops after Britain issued them with an ultimatum.

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    A Cockless Wonder
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    Quote Originally Posted by MANICHAEAN
    You are wasting your time giving Hitler quotes as he either lied, or was unable to discern truth from reality.
    100% correct. Hitler's political and philosophical statements were often highly tactical in nature depending on the audience and could be contradicted a short time later depending on the needs of the evolving situation.

    Hatred of Jews and belief in an Aryan super-race and Germany's right to control eastern Europe were the essential consistent themes.

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    Adolf had already 'gotten away' with annexing Austria and conquering Czech. Had he stopped there, there would have been no WW2 (yes, Czech was sold down stream by the Allies). But he didn't. It is well known that Hitler did not want war with the UK/ Allies, and quite well anecdoted that he was in fact a bit of an anglophile.

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    Thailand Expat helge's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by kingwilly
    Yes, it was those nasty, aggressive Poles that caused WWII
    Ah, you know your Pilsudski ?

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    Lets not forget the little practise session Hitler had during the Spanish Civil War.

    Hitler did have a deep respect for the British Empire. He was also Born Catholic. Did view peace with Britain as preferable. In fact as the BEF was being pushed back, the British Diplomatic Service where having very in-depth meeting with their German counterparts. On the British Side it was all a ruse, as we are told today at least. Hitler did stop his panzers from rolling in and moping up the DUnkirk enclave.

    He really did believe that Britain could be an ally to smash Communist Russion sub humans and also to eradicate jewish straggle hold on finances. What the diplomats did was inflict the first defeat on Hitler.

    The German Army was not as powerful (large) as is often portrayed early on in the war. If instead of trying to set up defensive lines along the French border when Poland was invaded, the French and Brits had rolled into the Ruhr, the war would have ended in a week. All the military might was engaged in the invasion of Poland.

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    Thailand Expat helge's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sailing into trouble
    the French and Brits had rolled into the Ruhr,
    Should have gone in in 35

  14. #14
    Excommunicated baldrick's Avatar
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    ^ or helped them conquer russia

    imagine the difference in pattaya today

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    Thailand Expat Boon Mee's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by baldrick View Post
    ^ or helped them conquer russia

    imagine the difference in pattaya today
    Well, that's one of the reasons Ike fired Patton.

    Patton wanted to keep going right on thru Berlin eastwards. Might have been a piece of piss too as the Russian Army was on it's last legs.

  16. #16
    Have you got any cheese Thetyim's Avatar
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    ^
    Winston wanted to hit the Ruskies as well.

  17. #17
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    On April 27th, 1939, UK mobilized her armed forces. Since England had never yet introduced universal conscription during peacetime, this alone virtually amounted to a declaration of war against Germany. From 1935 to 1939 (before the outbreak of the war) England's annual expenditure on war materials had increased more than five-fold.

    As we know, the British government under Chamberlain gave Poland the guarantee that England would come to its aid if Poland should be attacked. This was on March 31, 1939. Its purpose was to incite Poland to escalate its endeavors for war against Germany. It happened as planned: England declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939, but not on the Soviet Union who also attacked Poland, and this is proof enough that it was England's (and Chamberlain's) intention in the first place to make war on Germany. Thus WW2 was arranged by a complicity between Britain and Poland.

    Some of them knew it too - Jules Lukasiewicz, the Polish ambassador to Paris who on March 29, 1939 told his foreign minister in Warsaw:

    "It is childishly naive and also unfair to suggest to a nation in a position like Poland, to compromise its relations with such a strong neighbour as Germany and to expose the world to the catastrophe of war, for no other reason than to pander to the wishes of Chamberlain's domestic policies. It would be even more naive to assume that the Polish government did not understand the true purpose of this manoeuver and its consequences."

    "We never thought of peace, not even in that year when we were completely isolated and could have made peace without serious detriment to the British Empire, and extensively at your cost. Why should we think of it now, when victory approaches for the three of us?" Churchill in a letter to Stalin on 01.01.1944.

    "We entered the war of our free will, without ourselves being directly assaulted." Churchill speech July 1943, Guildhall.

  18. #18
    Days Work Done! Norton's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rainfall
    There are some persistent untruths out there on what and who caused the 2nd world war
    The Treaty of Versailles was the "what". French PM Clemenceau was the "who".

  19. #19
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    When Churchill was leaving London to meet Roosevelt for a conference in Quebec late in the summer of 1943, a reporter asked if they were planning to offer peace terms to Germany. Churchill replied: “Heavens, no. They would accept immediately.”

    Roosevelt’s policy was revealed when the Germans were able to search through Polish documents and found in the archives in Warsaw the dispatches of the Polish ambassadors in Washington and Paris which laid bare Roosevelt’s efforts to goad France and Britain into war. In November 1938, William C. Bullitt, his personal friend and ambassador in Paris, had indicated to the Poles that the president’s desire was for “Germany and Russia [to] come to blows, whereupon the democratic nations would attack Germany and force her into submission”; in the spring of 1939, Bullitt quoted Roosevelt as being determined “not to participate in the war from the start, but to be in at the finish.”

    “Regardless of his (Roosevelt) oft-repeated statement, ‘I hate war,’ he was eager to get into the fighting since that would ensure a third term.” Jones, Jesse H, Fifty Billion Dollars: My Thirteen Years with the RFC

    “President Roosevelt found it necessary to get the country into World War II to save his social policies.” Dr. Milton Eisenhower

    “Roosevelt has lied us [the U.S.A.] into the war.” Clare Booth-Luce at the Republican Party Convention in 1944

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    Actually Looper, I really wonder if Hitler did "hate" the Jews or just use them as a scapegoat.
    His Jewish officer recommended & awarded him his Iron Cross in the First World War.
    When he was down and out in Munich, Jewish friends in the hostel helped him.
    One Jewish patron used to buy his paintings.
    He was invited to Jewish houses which he appeared to enjoy.
    A Jewish doctor treated his mother for breast cancer. He said " I will forever be in your debt," and later allowed him to escape the camps to the US.
    Finally, on his father's side it was strongly rumoured that he was of Jewish descent . i.e. the result of a liasion between the son of a Jewish family and the home help.

  21. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by Boon Mee View Post
    Desperate history revisionism me thinks.
    It's all we know about historiology.

    Can't discern reality from illusion.

    It's all a matter of biased perspective and repetitive promotion.
    It's easy for them - as they know that 99.5% of the masses won't research, investigate, challenge, or question.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Troy
    These take-overs were the triggers to war.
    Incorrect - please look at the difference between symptoms and causes, Norton is quite right, a very much shared opinion by many historians . . .


    Quote Originally Posted by Norton
    The Treaty of Versailles was the "what". French PM Clemenceau was the "who".

  23. #23
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    Here is a map of Greater Poland circulating in the 1930s, calling for the annexation of all German lands East of the Oder and Neisse rivers and Czecheslovakia.



    The Poles actually believed they were a peerless power that would chasten Germany by defeating her in a few days. German troops found in the Presidential Palace in Warsaw an oil painting that showed Marshal Rydz-Smigly, the Polish commander-in-chief, riding on horseback through the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. It was not even completely dry.

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    ^ I don't disagree except they are the reasons for the Germans to feel hard done by and Hitler to rise. The emphasis here appears to be on the Allies' response. To go to war something a little more tangible is required.....

  25. #25
    I am in Jail
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    Quote Originally Posted by Troy View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Rainfall
    Polish sources from the time suggest otherwise.
    Rewind a little further. What about Austria and Czechoslovakia?
    What about the alliance with Japan and the invasion of China?
    What about the alliance with Italy and the invasion of Ethiopia?

    These take-overs were the triggers to war.

    There was a lot more to it than simply the invasion of Poland. This was the line drawn that Hitler was told not to cross. He ignored this warning and the rest is history.
    Had Hitler waited a couple of generations he could have crossed that line and our glorious leaders would threaten to get miffed if he crossed the next one.

    But must admit, as with most of Rainfall's illuminating versions of history and current affairs, I read this one feeling sorry for whoever it is that waters him.

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