Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/02/15

[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]

Subject: [Leica] Nazis: An Off-Topic Protest
From: Marc James Small <msmall@roanoke.infi.net>
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 21:18:29 -0500
References: <200102151833.KAA24378@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>

At 01:19 AM 2/16/2001 -0000, Hugo Lopes wrote:
>Morale: Before 39, Hitler was not regarded such a bad guy by the allies.
>He hated communists and left-wingers which suited the west's views fine.
>It was the allies fault as much as the German people fault for what
>happened. 

Hush your mouth, boy, or, better yet, come over to the WWII Lists and
repeat this tripe there.

Before 1939, Hitler was regarded as a monster by every Western leader, from
Franco to Chamberlain.  They simply didn't know how to deal with him.
Franco was relatively safe, due to geography, as was Chamberlain, but the
French and Czechs and Poles and Roumanians and Hungarians and Belgians and
Dutch and Danes and Norwegians and Swedes and Swiss and Bulgarians and
Greeks and Yugoslavians, und so weiter, had to deal with him at full
frontal nudity, and the prospect terrified them all.  No national leader
like the New German State worth a damn, but the query was whether they
could do business with the Reich:  what was its price, and would it stay
bought.  After Munich, all questions were removed.

Yes, there were Nazi followers, such as Sir Oswald Moseley and the
German-American Bund and Quisling and even the Irish Blueshirts.  Yes,
there were Nazi apologists, from Lord Halifax (though Harold Wilson told me
once that Halifax was really NOT a Nazi apologist, just a Britain-Firster
and a pacifist) to Charles Lindberg to Father Coughlin to Laval.  Yes,
there were those so scared of the Germans that they would go to any length
to preserve peace.  Yes, there were government officials and businessmen
who wished to pursue "business as usual" with the Nazis.

But to blame the West for Hitler and his evils -- something on the order of
20 million Soviet citizens killed, six million or many more Jews, Gypsies,
Socialists, &c, done in by noose and gas chamber, the destruction of an
entire nation and a continent -- this is insufferable, and shame on you for
the suggestion of it.

To counter every Vidkun Quisling and Charles Lindberg there was a Harold
Ickes and a Winston Churchill, for every Oswald Moseley a Paul Reynaud.  

Now, let us get back to Good German Culture, be this schmeirkase or Leicas,
gut rotwein or Mozart.  

Marc

msmall@roanoke.infi.net  FAX:  +540/343-7315
Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!

Replies: Reply from S Dimitrov <sld@earthlink.net> (Re: [Leica] Nazis: An Off-Topic Protest)