Churchill And The “Unthinkable”
By A D Hemming
30 November, 2014
Countercurrents.org
“History shall be kind to me, as I shall write it.” Winston Churchill.
“It's a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma” Winston Churchill's 1939 take on the USSR.
Who did the most to cause the Second World War after Adolph Hitler the consensus choice among historians for the “champ” in that department even if indirectly and in the time just before and or following Kaiserite Germany in the First World War? Was this “a riddle wrapped in mystery inside an enigma” which David Carlton, a British historian referred to in his monograph, “Churchill and the Soviet Union”? Two words— Winston Churchill!
Wouldn't the chief enabler of Hitler be at least indirectly the person most responsible for the Second World War? That's the conclusion along with Churchill being that person which this writer is compelled to express and to elaborate on in the text which follows.
Winston Churchill had once said rather accurately “History shall be kind to me, as I shall write it.” Was it maybe a tad too kind to him? What follows should give some idea.
In 1935 Churchill said of Adolph Hitler who along with his Nazis had been in power in Germany since sometime in 1933 Churchill didn't know if he “will go down in history as the man who restored honor and peace of mind in the great Germanic nation. . .” Really! What about when in 1933 Hitler said “Today we rule Germany, tomorrow the world” upon Hitler and his Nazis coming to power. This is documented by John Charmley's book, “Churchill: The End of Glory.” How about that for the enabling it would provide back in Germany with Churchill then serving as the chancellor of the exchequer in the cabinet and that being an office often used as and seen as a stepping stone to Number 10 and being prime minister?
Hitler's war as GIs (rank and file members of the American army) referred to it surely was that to the degree it was Germany's war which tends to be wide a consensus among historians. With that being the case, who was the chief enabler of Hitler? Churchill! On that plenty of evidence is available. Once that's established by a wealth of evidence this writer plans to present the case for putting the most blame for the Second World War after Hitler goes easily to Churchill, the “greatest fake in British history” only made to look good by his being nobility and made him immune from accurate criticism by same as did his apologists who rallied round this big fraud as he was so successful with his damn fiction and propaganda on his behalf. “History shall be kind to me, as I shall write it" as Churchill put it. Damn right! Way too kind!
Churchill's words a little before the November 1918 Armistice come to mind when he contended “[W]e might have to build up the German army, as it was important to get Germany on its legs again for fear of the spread of Bolshevism .” With his portfolio as one of the few ever to be minister for war and air as he was in David Lloyd George's cabinet from late 1918 to sometime in 1923, Churchill used his power not just within its official limits but it would appear much beyond and at times even against and undermining the prime minister's policy as he himself even openly said to the prime minister himself and is on record in that rather crucial period.
Freikorps Paves Way for Hitler and His Nazis— “Kiss the Hun”
Churchill was an enabler of Hitler and his Nazis by the “Kiss the Hun ” part of his “Kiss the Hun. Kill the Bolshie” policy and the following will get into that.
One word! Freikorps!
The Freikorps paved the way for Hitler and National Socialism to take power officially in Germany as Will Deac insists in an article on this matter. This will become overwhelmingly clear from the evidence which this writer will provide.
By 1919 the Freikorps or death squads made up of Kaiserite Germany's warriors who wanted to wage war endlessly and with no mercy numbered a quarter million and ex Kaiserite army officers were recruiting them into these vigilante armies which would give lynch mobs a bad name and harking back to medieval evolving” into the Nazi movement and party very early with the Nazi party starting as early as 1919 and with Adolph Hitler taking over the reins of power their in 1920 as well as infiltrating the media, the “educational" system, and bureaucracy.
The role played by the interaction between Churchill as war and air minister and the Freikorps are the key to how Churchill enabled Hitler, with this causing the Second World War to become virtually inevitable.
With the increasing dominance of those given to the most extreme embrace of militarism and imperialism this was surely the case even in some of the 1920s as such things as the assassinations of a Jewish socialist cabinet member but very loyal German who had backed the Kaiser's army right up until the top commander had said the army could no longer continue the fight and that of a Catholic Center politician as well as cabinet member who had likewise signed the armistice of 1918 with this being greeted with either enthusiasms of fanatics or at best indifference bred by the completely false notion of “Germany stabbed in the back by socialists and communists” thus bringing about its military defeat rather than defeat in combat as actually so clearly happened.
Very early the Freikorps immersed itself in anti Semitism and obsession with the left wing activists in Germany with “stabbing Germany in the back” while they were fighting the Anglo French US alliance. it became more rabid as time passed and as the more extreme elements became the vanguard for the Nazi movement and party and would later be the SA (storm troopers) or hired thugs for same and the SS (the most fully indoctrinated of the new Nazis(. But some of this extreme anti Semitism and dogmatic obsession about left wingers was there from the start The fact that “moderate conservatives” became accomplices to these death squads brutally killing without mercy along with other events finally did the Weimar Republic in. bringing the Nazis to power officially, They meanwhile became victims of this monster they had aided so much in the creation of maintain “law and order” internally and externally at the eastern borders with Germany.
The rather brutal assassinations of Karl Liebnecht and Rosa Luxemburg on the 15th of January 1919 after a Freikorps unit crashed into their flat in an upper middle class neighbourhood followed by beating of both and then the shooting of both. Liebnecht shot “in the back whilest trying to escape" and Luxemburg shot in the temple after her beating. With both dragged and brutally taken away at gunpoint prior to their assassinations from that same unit. This followed the killing by armor, flame throwers, and artillery pieces et al without mercy of at least 1,000 dissidents armed with only rifles and machine guns that they could get hold of who had rallied to back Liebnecht and Luxemburg in their fight against a regime which chose to engage in repression of all protesting against homelessness, poverty, and other social injustices of the time even though both Liebnecht and Luxemburg had sought to work through the system. The new “republic's" chancellor who had approved from the start of the protests the recruitment of the death squads known as the Freikorps made sure that didn't happen.
Also it's important to note that both Liebnecht and Luxemburg initially sought to work through the system, but when the “republican” government turned loose its death squads or the Freikorps on them that put an end for them to work within the system.
When the Weimar republic sought to disband some of the more extreme organizations, they would often just change their names. Otherwise the most extreme began to infiltrate the government rather than try to overthrow it. They would then become the state and make its authority total and absolute. This is what happened in 1933 with the help of their hired thugs roughing up their opponents and while intimidating them enthralling the populace as the media was becoming along with other institutions full of the admirers of these fanatics and thus ready to provide a ready made propaganda model to “manufacture consent” from the people as Edward S Herman and Noam Chomsky would put it. All the facts about the Freikorps paving the way for Hitler are documented in Will Deac's article already referred to.
Churchill 's Role and as Enabler as War and Air Minister
With all this going on and with the British and French armies and air forces occupying the part of Germany west of the Rhine, what were either doing about all this? Not much! Nothing or virtually nothing on the part of the British army and air force during this critical period. Churchill's policy was the exact opposite of that of David Lloyd George, his prime minister.
Actually these extreme right wing fanatics of the Friekorps could wield more power indirectly but with no accountability by not officially being in power and with the actual collaboration often of the Weimar government except when it came to such extreme actions as the coup of March 1920. .
Before 1919 ended the Nazi party had made its appearance. With Hitler taking over as the boss of the party the next year.
With the Kaiser's army having transported Vladimir Lenin by train through Germany to lead a Bolshevik revolution in Russia, many in Germany about the same time gravitated to this political tendency as might be expected and seeing as being perfectly patriotic. The Freikorps and others smashed these groups in much of Germany but in Munich a group met and proclaimed their new Bolshevik state for Bavaria. The Freikorps death squads amassed 30,000 for an attack on Munich. The attack came in May 1919 with armor and air power despite the Versailles Treaty ban on any air force slaughtering 500 who couldn't get away.
Neither the British or the French armies or air forces enforced the provisions of the Versailles Treaty at least fully even regarding the reparations, but most crucially neither the British or French military enforced the provisions having to do with restrictions of Germany's remilitarization so critical to preventing Germany from again threatening International peace to the point that it became a bad joke especially the British part.
This was clearly provided for in the Versailles Treaty which went unenforced as a local library put it.
Making War on the Russian Bolshevik Bear without Mercy — “Kill the Bolshie”
The “Kiss the Hun. Kill the Bolshie” policy had its “Kill the Bolshie” part which was indeed instructive along with the “Kiss the Hun” part. The use of the most devastating of chemical weapons in the British arsenal was indeed instructive on just how “mad for” as Prime Minister George put it non the most harsh of military operations Churchill advocated and implemented at the time.
These weapons would make the victims choke on their own blood. Many were non combatants in these villages Churchill deemed to be Bolshevik. The Churchillian action brings to mind a US response to burning down a village in Vietnam of one US commander “We had destroy the village to save it.”
War Made inevitable by Churchill
With all the already cited evidence it seems inescapable that the verdict on Churchill is that not only was history too kind to him but this “riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma” was after Hitler the individual most responsible for the Second World War albeit indirectly.
AD Hemming has been an activist for progressive causes since the early 1960s, has been a researcher, poet, journalist, historian and got his feet wet as a progressive in the civil rights movement in US South as a teenager and who identifies as black and provides a perspective of a person of color from the US South. A D Hemmoing is a pseudonym used by this writer on a regular basis.
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