Posted on 02/17/2013 4:52:16 AM PST by expat1000
I don’t think that most people have any idea just how anti-war most Americans were going into WWII. Nor do I think people understand how anti-British many Americans were.
There were probably several reasons for the anti-British sentiment. We had fought Britain in two wars for national survival and had a tough time of it. People were still taught history then, and they thought of Britain as an aggressor. Globally, Britain was still a colonial power, and we were anti-colonial by birth right. Finally there were a lot of Irish immigrants that had absolutely no use for the British at all.
Even after WWI we were still making warplans to fight the British and defend our Eastern seaboard from the Royal Navy.
The Commies sure were "anti-war", but that all changed when Hitler invaded their beloved Soviet Union. Then the press' attitude towards the isolationists suddenly changed.
That is actually a sensible policy. Without an Eastern front the eventual invasion of a German controlled Europe would have been impossible. If the USSR had surrendered I think that Great Britain would have come to terms with Hitler.
add me please
Another significant sore point was Britain’s use of war loans being used to reloan to other allies and deprive the United States of the jobs the war loan to Britain was supposed to produce. The Britain rubbed even more salt in the wound by defaulting on the multi-billion dollar debt when the debt when the allies they reloaned the money to defaulted on their repayments of the reloans to Britian. Britain simply wasn’t trusted to keep its agreements or honor the contracts to produce american jobs in excchange for the loans.
If the USSR had sued for peace as it did in World War One, Britain could not have succeeded in negotiating anything less than an unconditional surrender. Such an unconditional surrender would have resulted in a genocide equal to or greater than that experienced by Poland. Germany already had plans in place to exterminate the British leadership, intelligentsia, and military. Military age males were to be executed or sent as slave labor to Europe. Uselss mouths such as the elderly and infirm were to be liquidated in extermination concentration camps in Britain. females were to be liquidated in the extermination concentration camps, unless they were deemed to be useful for slave labor and Aryan breeding programs. The Royal Navy Fleet was to be used in the war Against the United States and its New World allies.
In the eevent of the loss of the Soviet Union and the occupation of Britain, the pre-war United States was already preparing to build an inter-continental bomber force. Some of the propased bases for this inter-continental bomber force were the Potuguese Azores, seized bases in North Africa, and/or captured Mediterranean island bases. The disparity in the ground forces was to be compensatedd by air supremacy, strategic bombing, and the atomic bomb weaponry.
The Sultan is awesome, I’ve seen a few of his articles. Please add me to the ping list? Thanks!
That's interesting. Not just because it discusses the alternative strategy of dealing with Hitler, but it shows the complete and total lack of concern about what Japan was doing on he other side of the world. Totally ignoring a real threat until it slaps you across the face is as American as apple pie, I guess. The difference between the reactions to 12/07/41 and 09/11/01 is astounding, and it does not bode well for this country.
I'd never heard that. It would be like Ford lending me money to buy a Chevy?
1941. Germany had lost the Battle of Britain and was not doing all that well on the seas either. I believe that Germany attacked the USSR because it couldn’t invade Britain any time soon. Had the USSR surrendered before December 1941 the US would not have entered the war, but Germany still wouldn’t have been strong enough to force surrender upon GB which still had the support of it’s Empire and the United States. I think the settlement would be that GB lifts it’s blockade of Germany and keeps it’s empire IOW: a stalemate. A triumphant Germany would not have made the same mistakes with Russia that it did in 1917.
Hitler had always planned upon conquering and colonizing Russia, as can be seen in his book, Mein Kampf. Stalin had always planned on invading Germany and the rest of Europe. It was not a question of if there would be invasions. There was only a question of when and how the invasions would occur. After the deeat of Goerings Adler Tag campain in the battle of Britain, Hitler found it necessary to consider the problems he would face with a longer and more costly campaign to invade and conquer Britain, when Hitler’s intelligence services were telling him how Stalin’s preparations for his own offensive against Geermany and Eeurope were approaching readiness.
With the benefit of hindsight, we now know Stalin’s plans were doomed to failure due to the poor combat performance of the Red Army and Stalin. But Stalin was not ware of this incapacity to perform in 1941. Just as he vastly overestimated the capabilities of the Red Army in its campaign against Finland in 1940, he had no clue how bad the Red Army would actually perform in Operation Barbarossa.
Hitler decided he could not afford to have Stalin attack him in the ear while he was drawn into a prolonged campaign against Britain in 1941 or 1942. Instead, he gave the Kriegsmarine the mission to starve Britain into submission with a submarine offensive and blockade, while the Whermacht disarmed and defeated Russia. Hitler badly needed resources to continue a prolonged war. Russia and the Middle East had those oil and other resources, while Britain did not. So, Hitler trusted the Kriegsmarine to handle the threat in the Weest, while the Wehrmacht conquered the threat and the future resources in the East.
Without the United States actively engaging the Kriegsmarine in the Battle of the Atlantic, Britain had absolutely zero chances for surviving much beyond late 1942 to late 1943. Eveen with the support of the United States, the Battle of the Atlantic was being lost until 1943, when the loss rates were suddenly and deecisively reversed. Prior to a date in 1943, the Allies were losing more merchant ship tonnage than it could build by a substantial margin. If things had kept on going the way they were, Britain would have been starving to death by late 1943 to early 1945. The cross channel invasion and strategic bombing campaign in the ETO would have to have been canceled or greatly reduced. The new anti-submarine efforts of the U.S. 10th Fleet and the Royal Navy reversed looming defeat into the steady and inexorable destruction of the U-boats. Hitler could have built far more U-boats and crews before he invaded Poland, but he miscalculated the Allied response. So, the Kriegsmarine went to war unprepared to blockade Britain and starve it into submission and surrender before the United States could intervene with its entry into the war. Hitelr could still have defeated the successful Allied anti-submarine campaign by the earlier construction of the advanced design U-boats in quantity, but he chose not to do so in time and numbers to overcome the Allied successes in 1943. Hitler failed to anticipate these events when he made his 1941 decision to proceed with Operation Barbarossa.
Hitler had always planned upon conquering and colonizing Russia, as can be seen in his book, Mein Kampf. Stalin had always planned on invading Germany and the rest of Europe. It was not a question of if there would be invasions. There was only a question of when and how the invasions would occur. After the deeat of Goerings Adler Tag campain in the battle of Britain, Hitler found it necessary to consider the problems he would face with a longer and more costly campaign to invade and conquer Britain, when Hitler’s intelligence services were telling him how Stalin’s preparations for his own offensive against Geermany and Eeurope were approaching readiness.
With the benefit of hindsight, we now know Stalin’s plans were doomed to failure due to the poor combat performance of the Red Army and Stalin. But Stalin was not ware of this incapacity to perform in 1941. Just as he vastly overestimated the capabilities of the Red Army in its campaign against Finland in 1940, he had no clue how bad the Red Army would actually perform in Operation Barbarossa.
Hitler decided he could not afford to have Stalin attack him in the ear while he was drawn into a prolonged campaign against Britain in 1941 or 1942. Instead, he gave the Kriegsmarine the mission to starve Britain into submission with a submarine offensive and blockade, while the Whermacht disarmed and defeated Russia. Hitler badly needed resources to continue a prolonged war. Russia and the Middle East had those oil and other resources, while Britain did not. So, Hitler trusted the Kriegsmarine to handle the threat in the Weest, while the Wehrmacht conquered the threat and the future resources in the East.
Without the United States actively engaging the Kriegsmarine in the Battle of the Atlantic, Britain had absolutely zero chances for surviving much beyond late 1942 to late 1943. Eveen with the support of the United States, the Battle of the Atlantic was being lost until 1943, when the loss rates were suddenly and deecisively reversed. Prior to a date in 1943, the Allies were losing more merchant ship tonnage than it could build by a substantial margin. If things had kept on going the way they were, Britain would have been starving to death by late 1943 to early 1945. The cross channel invasion and strategic bombing campaign in the ETO would have to have been canceled or greatly reduced. The new anti-submarine efforts of the U.S. 10th Fleet and the Royal Navy reversed looming defeat into the steady and inexorable destruction of the U-boats. Hitler could have built far more U-boats and crews before he invaded Poland, but he miscalculated the Allied response. So, the Kriegsmarine went to war unprepared to blockade Britain and starve it into submission and surrender before the United States could intervene with its entry into the war. Hitelr could still have defeated the successful Allied anti-submarine campaign by the earlier construction of the advanced design U-boats in quantity, but he chose not to do so in time and numbers to overcome the Allied successes in 1943. Hitler failed to anticipate these events when he made his 1941 decision to proceed with Operation Barbarossa.
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Japan was not ignored at all in the pre-war planning. In fact, it was envisaged that Japan was to be the foe of the United States, while the Britiash Empre and France dealt with Germany and Italy. The German Blitzkrieg of Western Europe in 1940 upset some of those earlier war plans and brought other alternative war plans to the forefront.
The B-17 and B-24 bombers were conceived as hemispheric defenses against hostile naval fleets approaching the continental United States. The B-29, B-32, B-36, and other very long-range bombers were conceived as inter-continental bombers. The inter-continental bombers were intended to be used against Japan, Germany, or other threats if and when the bases required very long-range missions.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was so determined to stay out of the major wars, Hap Arnold was nearly fired in 1941 when he warned Roosevelt about the dangers of waiting too long to obtain the Congressional appropriations needed to build the aircraft and ar forces needed for a U.S. defense in the war.
President Wilson’s deal with Britain was to make war loans to keep Britain afloat in World War One, if Britain used the loaned monies to purchase war supplies from the United States. After the war loans were given to Britain, Britain reloaned the same monies to the other allied powers using the same kinds of terms. The allies were to use the loaned monies to purchase war supplies only from British manufacturers. So, not only were the U.S. taxpayer funds not spent by Britain to purchase war supplies from U.S. manufacturers and U.S. labor, but Britain used the U.S. taxpayer funds to require the other allied nations to purchase only from British manufacturers and British labor instead of those in the United States. Then Britain added insult to injury by suspending repayment of the war loans when the allies defaulted on their repayments of the war loans to Britain. During the Great Depression, U.S. taxpayers were furious with Britain for what they viewed as British duplicity.
It is for these reasons the British diplomate in the Second World War referred to the U.S. Lend-Lease to Britain as such a great act. He had a double meaning, given the forgiveness of the British default in the same war loans of the prevous war.
Stalin was planning his invasion for 43 or 44. He had absolutely no plans to attack in 41.
You are quite right. The Nazi plan was to move East, as seen in MK.
Hitler never wanted to fight UK. He actually wanted to make peace after the Battle of France, leaving UK free to dominate the rest of the world while he took Europe. He assumed, not unreasonably, that the Brits would make peace after such a total defeat. He was absolutely shocked when they gave no sign at all of interest in peace.
From the POV of Nazi ideology, fighting in western Europe at all was a diversion from the true German destiny in the East.
“Hitler never wanted to fight UK. He actually wanted to make peace after the Battle of France, leaving UK free to dominate the rest of the world while he took Europe. He assumed, not unreasonably, that the Brits would make peace after such a total defeat. He was absolutely shocked when they gave no sign at all of interest in peace.”
It is true that Hitler envisaged an alliance with Britain when he wrote Mein Kampf, and his hopes were encouraged somewhat by the later naval treaty with Britain. However, Hitler reversed his attitude towards Britain in 1938 when Britain entered into alliances with Poalnd and France in the aftermath of the Munich agreement that surrendered the Sudetenland from czechoslovakia to Germany. from that point onward Hitler planned the conquest and recolonization of Britain by German colonists as the British population was exterminated in an even more comprehensive manner than Poland. Hitler’s comments in 1940 were more in the form of disingenuous propaganda to disarm those Britons who were disposed to fight to the bitter end. Hitler’s genuine intent by 1940 was to enslave and exterminate the population of Britain.
“From the POV of Nazi ideology, fighting in western Europe at all was a diversion from the true German destiny in the East.” Once Britain made it clear that it would remain a threat to Germany’s ambitions with a blockade of the continental powers as was accomplished in World War One, Hitler’s priority was to neutralize the threat in the West before pursuing the conquest of lebensraum in the East. Hitler intended to fight on one front at a time, which is why he entered into the non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union. Stalin’s imminent invasion plans and Germany’s desperate need for war material in Soviet territories caused Hitler to compromise his strategy. Hitler’s failure to defeat and occupy Britain in time to open sea trade for petroleum, iron ore, rubber, and other critical war supplies forced his hand into taking on Stalin’s forces before the completion of the the western campaigns.
I’ve read a number of books on the subject and I disagree.
Hitler considered the British to be for the most part perfectly good Aryan racial material, unlike the subhuman Slavs who needed to be exterminated eventually.
Had he succeeded in his conquest of Eurasia, access to the sealanes would have been more or less irrelevant.
Hitler was so convinced he would be able to cut a deal with Britain that the Germans didn’t really have anything even vaguely resembling a plan for conquest of Britain. They more or less rolled up to the English Channel and said, “Whoa, where did all this water come from? The tanks are going to have a little trouble getting to London.”
He was even less prepared to cross the Channel than he was to fight a winter war in Russia. In both cases he assumed the enemy would do what he wanted them to do, and was shocked when they failed to follow his script.
The Battle of Britain was to a considerable extent more like a tantrum and an attempt to intimidate the British into making peace than it was an actual prelude to an invasion.
Operation Sea Lion required that the Germans have BOTH naval and air superiority for a considerable period, and they never came close to getting either, even briefly.
That's why I believe he sent Hess on his mission to fly to Britain, even though of course he denied it...I think Hitler and Hess were the only two people who knew about it.
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