"What ever you do, don't mention the war!"
Posted on 05/05/2005 2:13:21 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War? by Viktor Suvorov (London: Harnish Hamilton, 1990); 364 pages; $22.95.
In the early hours of September 1, 1939, the military might of Nazi Germany was set loose on Poland. As Panzer divisions crossed the Polish-German border, the German air force began its devastating rain of death on Warsaw and other Polish cities. On September 3, Britain and France declared war on Germany.
On September 17, the Soviet Red Army invaded Poland from the east and met up with the German forces at the city of Brest-Litovsk. Poland ceased to exist as an independent nation, divided between the two great totalitarian states of the European continent. World War II had begun.But did World War II, in fact, begin in September on the plains of Poland? And was it in fact, Nazi Germany that began the Second World War?
What made it possible for Hitler to feel secure in invading Poland to the east, and not to worry about a two-front war if Britain and France initiated hostilities in the west, was the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of August 23, 1939. In a secret protocol to the pact, Hitler and Stalin had agreed to divide up Eastern Europe. In the event of war, Poland would be split down the middle between Germany and the U.S.S.R., with Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Romanian province of Bessarabia assigned to the Soviet sphere of influence.
Why did Stalin enter into this fiendish pact with Hitler? After all, throughout the 1930s, the Nazi and Soviet leaders had accused each other of being the greatest evil on the face of the earth. Most historians have argued that Stalin had come to the conclusion that the Western powers could not be relied upon in case of war. Rather than face the German army on his own, it was better to sign a non-aggression pact with the Nazi devil and have the extra time to defensively prepare the Soviet Union for the attack that Stalin knew would eventually come from Nazi Germany.
Viktor Suvorov, in his book Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War?, challenges this thesis concerning the rationale behind Soviet policy toward Hitler. Mr. Suvorov, a former Soviet army officer who has written extensively on the Soviet military and intelligence network, argues that the Nazi-Soviet pact was not a defensive action on Stalin's part. Instead, it was part of Stalin's Marxist strategy for revolutionary victory in Europe.
Marx and Engels believed that clashes between the capitalist nations would create avenues for the establishment of socialism. Lenin shared this belief. He saw World War I as a way among capitalist-imperialist powers, fighting over the plunder of the world. The more brutal and destructive the war, the more the power bases of the capitalist classes would be weakened. And out of this destruction would come the opportunity to transform a capitalist war into a "class war," resulting in the victory of communism.
World War I created the conditions for the Bolshevik Revolution and the triumph of socialism in Russia. Lenin believed that another world war would bring about the death of capitalism in other nations. Hence, anything that created the conditions for another world war was viewed as good from the revolutionary Marxist point of view.
Suvorov shows that Stalin shared this view. During the late 1920s and early 1930s, the Soviets assisted the Nazis in destroying the Weimar Republic in Germany. "Icebreaker,, was the Soviet code name for Hitler — the man who Would "break the ice "bring about another world war, and create the opportunity for the destruction of capitalism in Europe and the victory of socialism under Soviet leadership.
By signing the Nazi-Soviet pact in August 1939, Stalin deliberately produced the conditions for the world war that he wanted. Germany would fight the Other two main European powers — Britain and France — and then the Soviet Union would enter the war in its final stages to come out as the ultimate victor.
Suvorov also convincingly demonstrates that Stalin was not developing defensive forces along the new Soviet border with Germany, but rather as building up a vast and powerful offensive military force. Stalin was clearly Planning to enter the war by attacking Germany, and then bringing socialism to Central and Western Europe on the bayonets of the Red Army. Furthermore, all the evidence suggests — and Suvorov musters a vast amount of military and political evidence — that Stalin was planning his attack on Germany for the middle of July 1941.
Hitler preempted Lenin's plan by attacking the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. The staggering defeats suffered by the Soviet army in the early stages of the war was due to the fact that Stalin had tom down many of the Soviet defense positions and had not equipped his armies facing Germany with strategic-defense plans. All of their plans were for offensive operations.
The man who started World War II, therefore, was Stalin, who wanted to use Hitler as a tool for communist victory. And his plan partly succeeded. Out of the war's death and destruction, the Soviet Union was left as master of half of Europe, with Stalin as its Red Czar in the Kremlin.
That started The War To End All Wars. It had an "official" ending on 11:11 11/11/1911 (as is shown by seismic records.)
More pro-commie baloney!
You know, they hammered the "treaty of versailles sowed the seeds of ww2" into our heads throughout middle school, high school, and college.
A few years ago I really started thinking about it . . . it really starts to come off as a "its really our fault that Hitler and the German people started the war . . .we were mean to them." Then I started thinking about the people who said, "its really our fault the hijackers flew those planes into the buildings . . .we were mean to them"
Silly Dentist!! Bush started it! ;)
I agree that it was the French insistence on inflicting massive debt and other penalties on a fledgling representative government that gave Hitler a chance to rise to power.
The US, its evil and scary.
;0
Bingo!
Pat Buchanan has said it. But I agree with you.
That certainly got the ball rolling. Not to mention Italy's occupation of Ethopia in 1936.
Didn't just sack them. He killed them. Apparently a German spy convinced him almost his entire officer corps was in league with the capitalists. So in 38 he killed just about every officer above the rank of major. NOT a good idea when planning an offensive war.
"Who Started the Second World War?"
Bush??
Heh, and Clinton "officially" did NOT have sexual relations with that woman!
(Of course, that depends on what your definition of "is" is.)
1936 - When the French didn't resist the Nazi march into the Rhineland. Hitler gave orders for the Germans to retreat if so much as one shot went off on the French side. Obviously they never did, and from that point on, Hitler, as he said after Munich, knew his enemies were but "little worms."
Lol, which one again?
A factor, to be sure. But you also could list these things as equal factors:
- The Russian Revolution (Hitler got a lot of support out of fear of Bolshevism)
- The Great Depression (Germany suffered greatly under it, which helped Hitler to rise to power)
"What ever you do, don't mention the war!"
The "we were mean to them" answer is at least partly true. Among other things, it provided some ready-made grievances and problems that made militarism attractive, and it prompted the Weimar government to initiate hyperinflation to pay off the reparations.
Moreover, although the treaty was tough, it depended on the political will of (especially) the French -- which was of course non-existent.
Also, however, the Germans were not defeated in WWI the way they were in WWII. The lack of damage to the homeland allowed the militarists (who were not punished) to formulate the "stabbed in the back" excuse.
At the same time, we cannot forget the commies, who were actively trying to foment revolution in Germany, which gave traction to the various "marching societies," of which the Nazis were one.
Considering fear of Bolshevism also caused fascist dictatorships to spring up in Italy and Spain among other places let's put the blame on Czar Nicholas II then for ignoring the warning signs! That Dummy should have listened to the Duma. :-)
I think you got it. World War II started with the conditions that gave rise to Hitler. Both France and England were determined that Germany would not rise to compete again. Plus the thrust of Communism into Germany and Spain produced a Hitler response.
Wars are never won until you win the peace. e.g. the American leadership after WW II which overcame Britain, France plus Communist influence in our own administration who wanted to agrarianize Germany.
Who Started the Second World War?
I don't know about that, but one of Bill's generals wanted to start WWIII in Kosovo. I think it was his room mate at that English school.
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