I’ve already looked it up a long time ago. He admired Hitler’s revival of the German economy and society, and said so in Berlin to a representative of Hitler with whom he met. But then he told that representative that he found it entirely unacceptable to target an entire people on the basis of their race, explicitly mentioning the Jewish people, at which point Hitler’s representative left Churchill in a huff, leaving Churchill alone at the restaurant at which they had met at his invitation. The Third Reich never again attempted a parlay with then MP Churchill, seeing that he was hopelessly opposed to their world view. I’ve got the entire account, and will give you the book’s author, chapter and verse, when I find it.
But this is all a red herring. Your underlying premise, that Britain’s past misdeeds make them ineligible to say ‘boo’ in world affairs, and should allow Putin to run rampant in Eastern Europe yet again, is the underlying assumption of CRT and woke-ism, which goes as follows: America stole land and exterminated Indian tribes, enslaved blacks, and did racist stuff, so it is fundamentally immoral even today, and had better just shut up and pay reparations, and all white people should wear sack cloth and ashes forevermore.
Britain was once a mighty empire. America is a mighty empire at present. Russia was once a mighty empire. So was France and Rome and Greece and Persia and Babylon. Mighty empires, over the centuries, do many things, some of them great and wonderful, and some of them odious and criminal. But, as deTocqueville points out, nations are not like men. A man who commits crimes must be punished for them, or atone for them, and can’t go on from there. A nation, however, can start anew with each generation, even without tearing down statues of Jefferson and Jackson, or Churchill, all of whom were as complex as the nations they led, and who committed many terrible things, too, in addition to the great things that they undoubtedly did.
So blather on about how evil Britain supposedly is because of the potato famine, the Struma, Amritsar, or whatever. Those were in past generations. Right now, Russia is committing criminal acts and trying to destroy and absorb a smaller nation. Britain can and should help that nation defend itself, racist past or not.
Or, if you want, blather on about Ukrainians collaborating with Hitler, and the statues of Banderas and Khmelnicky. There’s also a monument memorializing the dead of Babi-Yar as well.
There is no moral justification for Putin’s invasion. There is no moral impediment to another nation helping Ukraine defend against Putin’s invasion. Period.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XObKJrz8Sjg
🧵1. A thread about racism in the British Empire and its denial today:
i. Nationalist-conservative commentators are now arguing a) that British colonialism was not 'essentially' racist, and b) that saying that people of colour were culturally backward ...— Alan Lester (@aljhlester) May 11, 2023
Winston Churchill, a giant of the 20th century, was wildly pro-eugenics but ironically became the man who would stand up to Adolf Hitler, the tyrant who brought all the logical conclusions of eugenics into horrific reality.
In a letter, Churchill advocated the sterilization of the "feeble minded and insane."
He wrote: "The unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the Feeble-Minded and Insane classes, coupled as it is with a steady restriction among all the thrifty, energetic and superior stocks, constitutes a national and race danger which it is impossible to exaggerate. I am convinced that the multiplication of the Feeble-Minded, which is proceeding now at an artificial rate, unchecked by any of the old restraints of nature, and actually fostered by civilised conditions, is a terrible danger to the race."
He called sterilization a "simple surgical operation so the inferior could be permitted freely in the world without causing much inconvenience to others."
In February 1911, Churchill urged the House of Commons to introduce compulsory labour camps for "mental defectives." The labor camps would also have plenty of room for "tramps and wastrels," to make them "realize their duty to the State." One of the chief opponents of a similar bill was GK Chesterton.