Lindbergh Goes Abroad to tour Europe
Wartime Journal published in 1970:
http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/27/specials/lindbergh-lost.html
And when he traveled in Germany shortly after the Nazi surrender in May 1945, he wrote in his journal. “What the German has done to the Jew in Europe, we are doing to the Jap in the Pacific.”
Now he says somethings in this that will invoke a strong response. But I don’t think I can argue with the following:
“Your ask what my conclusions are, rereading my journals and looking back on World War II from the vantage point of quarter century in time? We won the war in a military sense; but in a broader sense it seems to me we lost it, for our Western civilization is less respected and secure than it was before.
“In order to defeat Germany and Japan we supported the still greater menaces of Russia and China - which now confront us in a nuclear weapon era. The British empire has broken down with great suffering, bloodshed and confusion. France has had to give up her major colonies and turn to a mild dictatorship herself.”
“Much of our Western culture was destroyed. We lost the genetic heredity formed through eons of many million lives. Meanwhile, the Soviets have dropped their Iron Curtain to screen off Eastern Europe, and an antagonistic Chinese Government threatens us in Asia.
“More than a generation after the war’s end, our occupying armies still must occupy, and the world has not been made safe for democracy and freedom. On the contrary, our own system democratic government is being challenged by that greatest of dangers to any government - internal coordinating and unrest.
“It is alarmingly possible that World War II marks the beginning of our Western civilization’s breakdown...”
Its an important observation - but WWII just continued what WWI started.
Not true, but typical of anti-Semites of his time and Holocaust deniers of ours.
In fact, the Nazis systematically murdered nearly two-thirds of Europe's civilian Jews, including:
Overall WWII population losses were approx:
To mention just a few of the worst cases...
Point is: while Japanese losses were significant, many countries, including their ally Germany suffered worse.
quoting Lindberg: "It is alarmingly possible that World War II marks the beginning of our Western civilization’s breakdown..."
PGR88: "WWII just continued what WWI started."
If by that you refer to the loss of European & American colonial empires, then yes, of course, since the country most responsible for their destruction was... that's right, the United States.
Roosevelt's basic deal with Churchill was: OK, we'll pull your bacon out of the fire again, but this time it will also cost Great Britain her empire.
Without American intervention, Germany would have won both world wars, the world's international language would today be German, and most of the world's countries would be either the keepers or subjects of a very few European empires.
We would not like that outcome.