Posted on 09/06/2023 10:18:02 PM PDT by Ozguy1945
AJP Taylor died Sept 7th, 1990, in London, England. Wikipedia states that: “His combination of academic rigour and popular appeal led the historian Richard Overy to describe him as “the Macaulay of our age”.”
Taylor wrote:
“Human blunders usually do more to shape history than human wickedness.”
“The great armies, accumulated to provide security and preserve the peace, carried the nations to war by their own weight.”
Taylor had a low opinion of Adolf Hitler’s intellectual abilities: “A racing tipster who only reached Hitler’s level of accuracy would not do well for his clients.”
But he did not blame Hitler for everything: “If there had been a strong democratic sentiment in Germany, Hitler would never have come to power . [Germans] deserved what they got when they went round crying for a hero.”
What does this have in common with the thinking of paleoconservative Pat Buchanan, author of "Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War" ?
(Excerpt) Read more at freedom-demokrasi-and-civilised-humanity.com ...
Far too many fail to grasp the final two years of WW I, the continued drafts to fill the ranks, and public sentiment in Germany going south over the losses.
Somewhere in the summer of 1918, the SPD Party (leading the gov’t) went to the Kaiser and the generals...just saying that’s it, you need some exit from the war.
They felt that just ending it...no winner or loser, would be the best option. Upon meeting the French, Americans and British...no was the answer. It had to be a total surrender on Germany’s part, and reparations to occur. This was argued about but eventually...the gov’t of Germany came to agree on the end, and some type of surrender. The reparations could not be agreed upon.
11 November came...the war ended, and German troops just got up (with rifles and pistols), and went home. Disorganization opened up all kinds of issues. Those returning to Bavaria...found a civil conflict brewing between the communists and local officials. For about four months, there’s a lot of unrest in Bavaria, with a collapse of the city gov’t in Munich. Things are restored in the spring of 1919 only by a large army force sent from Berlin.
Everyone is disgruntled by the end of the war, and the country slides into a recession because of the lack of a reparations package. The industrial area of the NW (coal fields and steel industry) are taken over by the French...adding more economic woes.
This only comes to an end in 1925 when a retired US Army general builds a reparations deal with NY banks and Germany. Ton of money flows to French, Brit and US governments there in 1925 (no one talks about this today). It puts Germany into a serious long-term loan deal...where the public is bitter and the politicians marginally running things.
1929 arrives, with the Wall Street collapse. NY banks now approach the Germans...with contract ‘words’...they need a large amount of cash in a hurry. This puts pressure on the Germans, and the SPD-led gov’t collapses. The President of Germany at the time...invents some clause giving the SPD Party special powers, and they invent some cash to appease the NY banks.
HOWEVER, this triggers a new election within 6 months, and this is the entry of the Nazi Party into national politics. The reparations business and the deal with the NY banks trigger German frustration, and Hitler does his speech gimmick to articulate how the common vet from WW I had been screwed over multiple times.
The unfortunate side effect here...probably 20-percent of the German voters were communists, and the Nazis portrayed themselves as the protectors against the communists ever coming to power.
In summing it up...as much as one thinks that WW I ended...it just opened a decade-long path to settle the peace agreement seen as a major negative for Germans.
We really were closer to a Bolshevik Revolution sweeping all over Europe in 1919 than people realize.
“Taylor had a low opinion of Adolf Hitler’s intellectual abilities: “A racing tipster who only reached Hitler’s level of accuracy would not do well for his clients.” “
I don’t think that is accurate, especially early in the war. Later on, Hitler’s military blunders contributed to more rapid defeat.
But in the Battle of France, Hitler, along with von Manstein, was the major player in changing the plan of attack from the original Case Yellow, which was a rerun of 1914 thru Belgium, to the Ardenne offensive.
“We defeated the wrong enemy!”
General Patton
Pretty much true in 1919. Dozen different ways that Bavaria could have gone on and become a Soviet state...if Berlin had not reacted.
But allowing the war to end and troops bringing their weapons home...was a four-star colossal mistake. Throughout the 1920s, the gov’t tried to bring up gun-control measures and force vets to bring their weapons to some turn-in point.
We’re in a Bolshevik Communist revolution NOW.
Do you see what’s happening in this country?
Same parallels to the 1920s.
Of course, as my brother jokes, while US and British academic historians refer to the era between WW I and WW II somewhat clumsily as the interwar period, Germans simply call it halftime.
Germany's thirst for revenge after WW I stemmed in great part from not accepting the loss in WW I as due to getting into a war that they would eventually and near inevitably lose due to the greater financial, industrial, and manpower resources of the Allied coalition. Germany repeated that mistake in WW II.
In contradiction to your view of reparations, historian and economist Naill Ferguson points out that unlike France, which in WW I suffered the invasion and wrecking of their primary industrial region in their northeast, Germany's industrial capacity was virtually unimpaired at the end of WW I. Moreover, the breakup of Austria-Hungary after WW I was a great economic boon in that it opened that region to German industrial exports.
As it was, Germany could have paid off the reparations assessment from the Versailles Treaty more easily than France in paying off the indemnity required of them after the Franco-Prussian War.
Instead, Germany's post war government and aristocratic elite deliberately wrecked their economy through inflation as a way to shirk the reparations required by the Versailles Treaty. In comparison, facing a heavy burden of reparations after the Franco-Prussian War, France reformed their government and economy to become more productive and financially well-grounded.
For France, the result was a period of peace, stability, and accomplishment that became known as "La Belle Epoque." Germans grumbled that French success meant that they should have been more heavily assessed.
Of course, had the Depression not occurred, Germany would not have embraced Hitler and the Allies would not have been so enfeebled as to permit his rise to power. And, arguably, the cause of the Depression was the gold standard and that that France and the United States foolishly pursued a policy of gold accumulation without adding to their monetary currency base.
With gold bullion flowing into French and American national treasury vaults and thereby denied to other buyers, the result was a worldwide gold squeeze. That led to inadequate money supply for lack of gold as a base, with grueling deflation and broad economic contraction following.
There is no economic recovery from 1918 to 1925...especially from coal/steel sector, until the reparations are paid with the loan deal.
I’ve been to a number of German museums which feature technology of the 1920s/1930s. It’s in 1925 that the radio era finally takes off, and receiver units are now affordable.
Oddly, there are enough regulations in place to prevent political use all the way to 1930. Once the election occurs, and the Nazis are a part of the coalition....they are able to work politics into radio use. For this period that came after that...it’s obvious that the radio played a key role in the change of the gov’t.
I have the book and more on ww2 than I even know.
Buchanan made some very good points in the book. Hitler wasn’t a good man but also was not (originally) interested in a world war. The war hawk Churchill did very much to inflame what really was a legitimate quarrel with Poland (to understand why you have to go all the way back to the draconian and unfair Treat of Versailles that ended WW1 but blamed it all on Germany).
If not for Churchill there is a chance it could have stayed a regional war.
My belief as well. Still, I beg you not to forget that AJP Taylor was a fierce Germanophobe (just like nearly all of his countrymen whom I had the misfortune to come across in my lifetime, Freeper Winniesboy being the shining exception).
Thus, I would not give him too much credit when it comes to German history. By the way, his pamphlet „The course of German history“ is sheer war propaganda and should be understood as such. I suspected that this book might have been the ideological forerunner of Daniel Goldhagen‘s viperous writings.
As for radio, regulations by German and then Nazi governments impeded its development. This led to a relative lack of technical understanding and skills in the fields of radio and radar during WW II. The British (and the US) proved to be better at it.
Oh you’re pro-Nazi? What a sad bunch of losers.
“If not for Churchill there is a chance it could have stayed a regional war.”
__________________________
I believe the same could be said about FDR
“and Hitler does his speech gimmick to articulate how the common vet from WW I had been screwed over multiple times.”
Well to be honest about it, they we’re screwed over. The same thing happened here with The Bonus Army.
L
Very possibly.
I understand he was very, very much the Anglophile.
That’s a typical knee-jerk response when you can’t debate the facts.
Being an advocate for White self-interests doesn’t imply contempt or hatred for other races or cultures.
I want everyone to be the best they can be. But they need to remain in their own lands.
For blacks, they should work to make their own communities better first.
Of course not, but being pro Nazi, which is what you just admitted to, sure does!
Not sure how up on 20th century history you are, but the Nazis are not known for their “live and let live” attitude with regard to other races and cultures.
Bonus Army was an effort by the Democratic Party to take down Hoover. Worked perfectly.
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