Counter-Currents
Hitler the Peacemaker
David L. Hoggan’s The Forced War
Part 5
F. Roger Devlin
Hitler issuing his declaration of war against Poland in the Reichstag on September 1, 1939.
2,746 words
Part 5 of 5 (Part 1 here, Part 4 here)
A German war with Poland was now a certainty, but a new continental war involving Britain and France was not. The most important obstacle to the widening of the conflict was that Britain quietly viewed French participation as an indispensable precondition of her own involvement, and the French had not committed themselves to action against Poland. Indeed, sentiment within the French leadership was largely opposed to intervention.
Hitler addressed the Reichstag on the morning of September 1. He emphasized his longstanding attempts to resolve issues with foreign nations through peaceful revision. Poland had rejected proposals more generous than any other German leader had dared to offer. Hundreds of thousands of people in Danzig and the Corridor were suffering from Polish countermeasures since she declared partial mobilization March 23. Unlike Poland, Germany had faithfully carried out the provisions of the minority treaty of November 1937.
Hitler had announced his own position in the dispute on April 28. Since then, he had waited four months in vain for some response from the Polish side. No great power could tolerate such conditions indefinitely.
Germany’s dispute with Poland did not affect the Western powers’ vital interests. Hitler had never asked and never would ask anything from Britain and France, and he ardently desired an understanding with them.
The German Chancellor then announced his war aims. He intended to solve the Danzig and Corridor questions, and to bring about a change in German-Polish relations. He would fight until the existing Polish government agreed to peaceful coexistence or until another Polish government was prepared to accept this. He was pursuing limited objectives and not insisting on the annihilation of the Polish armed forces or the overthrow of the Polish state.
Hitler claimed the German Reich had spent 90 billion Marks for defense purposes during the previous six years. This was an exaggeration: About half of that sum had gone for public works with no direct connection to armament. His juggling of the figures was an effort to discourage Britain and France from declaring war on Germany.
Following Hitler’s speech, a bill was introduced for the annexation of Danzig to the Reich. It passed unanimously.
The indefatigable Birger Dahlerus continued his mediation efforts on September 1, seeking permission from the British Foreign Office to come to London to present the German case. At 1:25 PM he received a definite refusal: The British authorities would not agree to support further negotiations unless German troops withdrew from Poland and Danzig.
That evening, Prime Minister Chamberlain addressed the House of Commons, claiming that “the responsibility for this terrible catastrophe lies on the shoulders of one man, the German Chancellor.” He claimed Hitler’s recent suggestion that a Polish envoy come to Berlin for negotiations was a command for Poland to accept Germany’s terms without discussion. This was patently untrue, but as Hoggan observes, “the Polish case was so weak that it was impossible to defend it with the truth.”
Chamberlain promised to keep British casualties to a minimum by attacking Germany primarily from the air. This was a tacit admission that Britain planned to let the French do most of the bleeding. No wonder the French government was less enthusiastic at the prospect of war!
Halifax delivered a similar speech in the House of Lords. He insisted the English conscience was pure, and proudly added that he would not wish to have changed anything about British policy. As Hoggan notes, Halifax retained this smug complacency even in his post-war memoirs.
Upon the outbreak of hostilities, Britain demanded an immediate Anglo-French ultimatum to Germany. Bonnet hoped there would never be such an ultimatum, but he replied simply that it would be impossible to consider the matter until after the convening of the French Parliament on September 2. In fact, Bonnet was trying to arrange an international peace conference, despite worries about British intransigence. He had the support of Prime Minister Daladier and most Cabinet ministers. This greatly worried Halifax, who wired Britain’s ambassador in Paris that the French attitude was causing grave misgivings in London. He added, “We shall be grateful for anything you can do to infuse courage and determination into M. Bonnet.” To the British Foreign Secretary, anyone who opposed his plans for war could only be a coward.
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On the afternoon of September 1, Daladier sent an appeal to the Italians for help in arranging a conference. The message was welcome: Italy was proud of having launched a successful last-minute mediation effort in the Czech crisis the previous year, and hoped to do so again. Most of her efforts on September 1, however, were directed to convincing the world she would not intervene in Germany’s war against Poland. Italy still feared possible British attack, and an angry mob was besieging her embassy in Warsaw in the mistaken belief that she was aiding the Germans.
Ciano and Mussolini decided it would be wise to secure German support before approaching the French and British about a conference. Ciano wired Berlin at 10:00 AM on September 2 about Daladier’s solicitation of a diplomatic conference. Italy was prepared to propose an armistice that provided for the halting of the German and Polish armies at the positions momentarily occupied. Arrangements could then be made for a conference within two or three days. Hitler responded enthusiastically. An Italian diplomat who was present records that Hitler appeared positively eager to terminate German operations in Poland. He knew that with French support, Germany and Italy could prevail over Britain and Poland in any five-power conference. By 4:00 PM, the Italians had received word of German approval. Hitler declared he would be able to stop operations in Poland by noon the next day.
At this same hour, however, Halifax was insisting to Bonnet that Germany would have to complete the withdrawal of her forces from Poland and Danzig before Britain would agree to consider the conference plan. Bonnet knew that “no Great Power would accept such treatment.”
Ciano telephoned Halifax at 5:00 PM and was stunned to learn of his insistence on a full German withdrawal from Poland as a precondition for any conference. He assured Halifax this would destroy every chance for a peaceful settlement; the Italian diplomat still did not grasp that this was Halifax’s purpose. Moreover, as Hoggan notes:
He failed to perceive that British entry into the war was dependent on the consent of France, and that the British would not be able to destroy his peace plan if it was supported by France. The moment of decision for the Italian mediation effort had arrived, but Ciano was so overwhelmed with indignation at British intransigence that he failed to make the proper comments. He should have taunted Halifax with the fact that the French attitude toward the crisis was entirely different.
That very afternoon, Daladier’s promise to continue working for peace had been met with loud applause from all sections of the French Chamber.
One possible reason Ciano failed to play the French card was continued fear of British reprisals; recall Halifax’s August 20 threat that Britain would attack Italy immediately with most of her armed forces if she joined Germany in any war. Thus, Ciano’s conversation with Halifax remained brief and inconclusive, leaving him in a depressed mood.
Also at 5:00 PM, Bonnet was repeating to a British diplomat his refusal to make the withdrawal of German troops from Poland a condition for a conference. Bonnet said he would present this question to the French Cabinet, which would probably not reach a decision before 9:00 PM. Under pressure from Halifax, he promised that the French Cabinet would try to complete deliberations by 8:00 PM.
At 6:00 PM, Halifax learned that Ciano had been complimenting Bonnet on a response to Italian mediation efforts “more forthcoming and willing” than Halifax’s own. Was Ciano beginning to realize it was France and not Britain that held the key to peace? He instructed Britain’s ambassador to France to make a strong protest that “the position of the French government was very embarrassing to His Majesty’s Government.” The ambassador responded that the protest could not be delivered immediately since the French Cabinet was in session. At that very moment Bonnet was making his final, supreme attempt to commit his colleagues to a peaceful settlement, and there was nothing more Halifax could do to influence the outcome.
He then decided on a “desperate gamble,” telephoning Ciano at 6:38 PM to deceive him about the situation:
Halifax told Ciano that the withdrawal of the German troops from Poland was the essential condition for any conference, and he implied that Great Britain and France were in complete agreement on this important question. Ciano received the false impression that Bonnet had accepted this fatal maneuver to obstruct a conference prior to attending the French Cabinet, which was still in session.
Halifax further insisted that Britain would demand the restoration of the government of the League of Nations High Commissioner (then in Lithuania) to Danzig before considering the possibility of a conference. His imagination was endlessly fertile in throwing up obstacles to peace.
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The bluff was successful: Ciano never imagined a British Foreign Secretary would deliberately lie about another nation’s views. Both Ciano and Mussolini concluded that the cause of peace was lost. It was a disastrous mistake.
At 7:30 PM Chamberlain presented to the House of Commons a distorted version of the Italian peace plan, asserting that “Britain could not consent to negotiate while Polish towns were being bombarded and the Polish countryside invaded.” Halifax made a similarly misleading address to the House of Lords. In reality, both men knew Hitler had offered to suspend hostilities as a necessary condition for any conference.
At 8:20 PM, Ciano wired instructions to Italy’s ambassador in Berlin announcing that Mussolini had formally withdrawn his offer to mediate among Britain, Germany, Poland, and France. Hitler was advised to abandon plans for an armistice.
At that very moment, the French Cabinet was adjourning its first session in Paris without having reached a decision on the conference plan. A still hopeful Bonnet was then informed of the withdrawal of the Italian mediation effort. At 8:30 PM he put through an urgent telephone call to Ciano:
Bonnet explained that France had not actually accepted the British condition of a German troop withdrawal. Ciano expressed amazement, but did not see how Italy could retrieve her blunder of cancelling her mediation plan. Bonnet no longer had the German assurance for an armistice. Ciano insisted that a new mediation effort would be unpropitious under these circumstances, and the French Foreign Minister reluctantly agreed.
Hoggan comments, “This conversation is a striking example of the manner in which resignation and fatalism can paralyze the will under the enormous pressure of a crisis situation.”
Bonnet had no sooner put down the receiver than another French minister appealed to him with tears in his eyes to get back on the telephone and insist Italy launch a new mediation effort on condition that the German troops halt their advance. Hitler, he said, would very likely agree to these terms. “Bonnet sadly replied that, in his opinion, there was no longer the slightest doubt that such an effort would fail.”
Having concluded his speech to the House of Lords shortly after 8:00 PM, Halifax was waiting impatiently for news from Rome. At 9:30 PM he received a wire that the Italians “do not feel it possible to press the German government to proceed with Signor Mussolini’s suggestion.” The war he sought was finally within his grasp: All that now remained was to obtain an official French declaration.
Chamberlain telephoned Daladier at 9:50 PM, claiming with considerable exaggeration that he had faced an “angry scene” in Parliament when he said he was still consulting with France on the time limit for an ultimatum. He told Daladier he wished to inform the British public before midnight that an ultimatum would be delivered in Berlin by both Britain and France at 8:00 AM the next day, September 3. Daladier’s answer was no: “He asserted in desperation that he still had good reason to believe that Ciano was about to renew his mediation effort [and] advised against any kind of diplomatic step before noon on the following day.”
The British were furious. Halifax decided on another gamble:
He telephoned Bonnet at 10:30 p.m. that the British ultimatum for 8:00 a.m. the next day would be communicated to the British public before midnight, regardless of the attitude of France. He was unable to disguise his basic dependency upon France. He confided that everything would proceed unilaterally up to the expiration of the British ultimatum at noon. Britain at that point would take no action unless the French had previously agreed to follow with their own declaration of war within twenty-four hours.
Hoggan pauses for an instant to consider the “fantastic situation” that might have ensued if the French had persisted in their refusal to deliver an ultimatum and the British had failed to act on theirs.
Halifax’s telephone call with Bonnet lasted a long time, and Halifax did most of the talking. He then
drew up a memorandum on the conversation in which he concluded, after some hesitation, that Bonnet had “finally agreed.” French resistance crumbled rapidly in the face of Halifax’s self-assurance. Bonnet concluded fatalistically that, with the Italians now out of the picture, it would be futile to continue to frustrate British designs.
Bonnet was a sincere friend of peace, but at least twice on the evening of September 2 his will proved weaker than Halifax’s, both during his 8:30 call to Ciano and his 10:30 conversation with Halifax himself. The French ultimatum followed the British in well under 24 hours, and Europe was at war.
* * *
Hoggan’s gripping narrative of the last days of peace, especially the brinksmanship of September 2, provides more than enough support for his contention that
there was no justification for the later fatalism which suggested that World War II was inevitable after 1936 or 1938. The British had to work very hard until the evening of September 2, 1939, to achieve the outbreak of World War II. The issue was in no sense decided before that time.
Some readers may be surprised at the absence of Winston Churchill’s name from this narrative. In the period covered by The Forced War, Churchill was the leader of the war party in the House of Commons, and does merit a few mentions, but Hoggan states:
Churchill does not bear direct responsibility for the attack on Germany in September 1939, because he was not admitted to the British Cabinet until the die was cast. The crucial decisions on policy were made without his knowledge, and he was amazed when Halifax suddenly shifted to a war policy in March 1939. Churchill was useful to Halifax in building up British prejudice against Germany, but he was a mere instrument in the conduct of British policy in 1938 and 1939.
The war which began in September 1939 would prove a catastrophe for Poland and a Pyrrhic victory for Britain, which was reduced to the status of an American vassal and was shortly thereafter deprived of her Empire. The true victor would be the Soviet Union, which ended up controlling half of Europe for four and a half decades after the conclusion of hostilities. As noted above, virtually everyone underestimated the Bolshevik colossus in 1938 and 1939.
Yet despite its disastrous outcome, the struggle against Hitler remains the founding myth of the post-war world. Every foreign head of state perceived as a threat is “the new Hitler,” and every attempt to deal with such a man through negotiation is “appeasement” and a failure to learn the “lessons of Munich.” The persistence of this pernicious mental template among the powerful continues to threaten the peace of the world and makes Hoggan’s guided tour of musty diplomatic archives as relevant to the future of our civilization as today’s headlines.
A correction of the record is also a matter of simple justice. Millions of people continue to believe the literal truth of British and Polish propaganda from 1939 — namely, that these nations did everything possible to maintain peace, but were forced to take a heroic stand against monstrous aggression from a madman determined to take over the world. Hoggan, writing at the height of the Cold War, concludes:
The German people, especially, have been laden with an entirely unjustifiable burden of guilt. It may safely be said that this is the inevitable consequence of English wars, which for centuries have been waged for allegedly moral purposes. It is equally evident that the reconciliation which might follow from the removal of this burden would be in the interest of all nations which continue to reject Communism.
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29 comments
Has this author never heard of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact? Ridiculous hogwash of doubtful utility
You should have read part 3 before commenting.
Having read parts 2-5, it is clear this book does not introduce anything that wasn’t already known, aside from false and vague accusations of alleged mistreatment of the Germany minority in Poland (probably about as valid as Putin’s complaints about the treatment of the Russian minority in his next target of choice).
There is no “correction of the record” evident in this book. What is clear is Hitler consistently and firmly embarked on a program of aggression and annexation by means of military force, leading to his declaring war on Poland, and the very title of this series is a cruel joke to everyone who lost their lives in the Second World War.
The details in Part 5 on alleged diplomatic efforts to prevent Britain and French from coming to the aid of their (publicly-declared) Polish ally , while interesting, again only reveal an aggressive warmonger doing everything in his power to wage war and terror on sovereign states in Eastern Europe without intervention by the Western powers. A nice try at sophistry, but the conclusions do not match their own evidence.
Both the Czechs and the Poles killed and mistreated German minorities hoping that they would be silent or leave.
No statesman could have ignored this situation forever, and encircled Danzigers were some of the most dedicated National Socialists of them all.
The NSDAP had the plurality in the Reichstag by 1932, and Hitler had come to power in 1933 on the promise that the Versailles Treaty and its grievances would be redressed ─ while the bourgeois political parties were content to dither and to borrow money from American bankers to pay open-ended Reparations. Even the German Communist Party, the KPD hated the Versailles Dictate.
If anybody spoke for the German people it was Hitler.
All of these territorial transfers should have been conducted by international plebiscites no more than perhaps ten years after the World War. This did not always happen, however, because the Germans did not have equality before the world bar ─ and the Entente encirclement of Germany was strategically paramount over German sovereignty and minority rights. This is why the Germans quit the League of Nations.
However, even when such territorial plebiscites did occur, they often disappointed the Allied powers because the ethnic-Germans under foreign rule wanted nothing more than to be Germans again.
Danzig was German. Yes or No?
Even the Poles understood this, but because the Allied powers gave them a blank check, calling any agreements with Hitler “Appeasement,” the Polish colonels seriously thought that they could cash the blank check given to them in March of 1939. If war came, they imagined themselves riding into Berlin in a fortnight ─ but they were only opening themselves up to a Soviet annexation.
Hitler offered a peace agreement based on a road and rail right-of-way between Germany, Danzig, and East Prussia. That was a reasonable request but it would have ended the Polish encirclement of Danzig.
Imagine that Texas was settled by Sudeten or Silesian Germans and that some foreign powers decided to “give it back” to Mexico. This would be done primarily to weaken the mother country and thus improve the “balance of power.”
This is why the German border with the Czech state was moved past Bohemia and far enough West to command the German mountain range, and also dooming ethnic-Germans in the Sudetenland as helots on the wrong side of the border.
So you thus find yourself as a hated minority in your ancestral lands and you now have to start speaking Spanish and even to practice the atrocious Latin Rites of the Pope.
Today this would be called ethnic-cleansing, or sometimes Genocide (although I would advise using caution about using that contentious weasel-word).
Well, I could be wrong here, but I don’t think that Texans would be as patient about this state of affairs as the Germans were. We are inclined to “Remember the Alamo,” and fortunately we are not yet ashamed of that. Unlike the Germans today, we are not yet a defeated people ─ at least not militarily.
I like the Polish people but their papist chauvinism and the incompetence of their political and military leaders in 1939 really earned their misfortune here. The entire country was moved about 500 miles to the West by the Soviets and the Allies, and they lived under Communist rule for decades ─ largely on account of their own doing.
All not to appease Hitler or the Germans.
Even today, forensic archaeologists are giddy when they find a mass-grave in Eastern Germany or Western Poland. The Holocaust film documentaries get ready for a spectacle.
And then they actually dig and find that the people shot in the forehead were not victims of the SD at all but German nurses still wearing their NSDAP auxilliary uniforms and badges. Oh dear.
And maybe whether a German nurse in a mass-grave got raped or not depends on whether the shooters were surly Polish freedom-fighters or brigandish Russian infantrymen.
In any case, “Nazi medical staff” helping the peasants in some blighted wartime village is not the story that we wanted to tell. The Krauts must have really been gassing Jews or sterilizing Pollacks. BBC story then goes nowhere.
The facts are that Hitler was nearly alone in being interested in a peaceful resolution for these vexing Interwar issues.
Everybody else ─ except Slovakia and Romania, both of whom asked Hitler for protection ─ wanted Germany restored to its 1919 vassalage.
Everybody else wanted a Europe divided into a balance ─ “from Stettin on the Baltic to Trieste on the Adriatic” ─ between the Communists and the West. Goebbels warned in 1943 that this would be an Iron Curtain, a phrase which a somewhat sundowned Churchill belatedly borrowed in 1946.
Unfortunately, the Germans just could not fight their way out of it. Hitler is to be faulted here not for his wickedness compared to Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin, but for having tried the impossible.
🙂
This is a very one-sided view of the matter. It is an account that starts only after German defeat in WWI. At least since 1848 German nationalists pushed agressively to dominate East-Central Europe whilest Poles and Czechs pushed back against German expansionism (Pan- Germanism). It should be noted that those ethnically German regions were historically part of the Kingdom of Poland and Kingdom of Bohemia. This was especially true of the so called Sudeten-Germans who were never a political unit before 1918. A Czech state without “Sudetenland” was undefensible, it would not make sense geographically. (It has always been part of the Bohemian Crown even during the Habsburg monarchy). Danzig was similarly vital for the independence of Poland.
Czechs and Poles both had lasting historical claims on these regions since the constitution of their nation states in the early middle ages and they also needed these regions for their safety. On the other hand, united Germany was a relatively new creation – only since 1871.
It seems to me that smaller white nations should be given their safe-spaces within geographically defensible boarders, even though they may enclose some minorities of larger nations, that already have their own large states. With Ukraine, the problem is it was given too much. With Israel, the problem is it was given too little (The 1948 boarders make no sense – Arabs already had a dozen of states by that time.).
That was discussed in part 3.
To Mr Guest,
the Czechs were so insatiable colonizers that apart from the Sudetenland with its 3 million German inhabitants they needed the whole of what is today Slovakia and even part of present day Ukraine called Sub-Carpathia.
This is somewhat true. But on a White Nationalist website, do we agree that colonization is rather a good thing (if it is done by a civilized people)? 🙂 Czechs imagined Slovaks to be part of their own nation (“younger borthers”). Carpatho-Ukraine was indeed a kind of mini-colony where Czechs wanted to immitate the Brits as benevolent colonizers. Some Czechs even lusted after former German colonies. An alternative was to buy some colonial territory from the Dutch, Portuguese or Belgians. Czechs thought they could operate the colonies via Danzig and Triest. During the Cold War Czechoslovakia maintained a quasi colonial empire in communist countries in Africa where Czechs sent their instructors, doctors and technicians. By the same principle they accepted thousands of North Viet-Nahmies workers who created a rather large East Asian minority in Czechia and Slovakia.
In a word,”no” to colonialism, “yes” to nationalism.
Methinks colonialism is rather ambivalent. The classic 19th century administrative white colonialism in Africa and Asia was predominantly a civilising force and it uplifted the indigenous peoples. It is an open question to what extend it harmed or helped Europeans. Decolonisation, however, was mainly harmful – it created a global economy dominated by the USA and a neoliberal capitalist elite. Gradually it would lead to both de-industrialisation of white countries and jointly to their flooding by non- white immigration.
You can’t blame globalization and mass immigration on decolonization. The latter is arguably based on colonialism in the first place, since the old colonial empires are vectors for flooding different European countries.
So it was not only banditry but a pipe-dream banditry by the Czechs. Usually that is what creates heaps of corpses this way or that.
To BOX HILL: This depends on the perspective. US- based White nationalists may study the story of Czechoslovak 2nd president Edward Benesh. He was an arch-enemy of uncle Adolf and thought of himself as an American style liberal politician (say of the Wodrow Wilson style). But compared to the standards of to-day he was an absolute nationalist and ethno-centrist who in the end removed all Germans from his country. It shows how the 1930s and 1940s simply were different times and people thought differently.
Well done. It’s pretty clear that the Allies were playing geopolitical games and set up Poland to take the fall. It’s not too different from how the Deep State set up Ukraine for a proxy war.
Anyway, here’s some valuable further context:
The Gleiwitz “False Flag” Incident is Pure Fiction | Carolyn Yeager
Aha! I hadn’t noticed your comment when I posted my own query (see below) about the ‘Gleiwitz incident’. Thanks for the link.
In 2014, I wrote to David Irving by email and asked him about the Gleiwitz incident. He replied, “the Gleiwitz raid was genuinely planned by the SS but at the last minute bungled and no use was made of it except in a passing remark by Hitler.”
Mr. Irving and Ms. Yeager are in agreement that “no use was made of it.”
A thorough review of the evidence. Thanks.
I have two queries:
1: Was the ‘Gleiwitz incident’ a Nazi false-flag attack, as is usually claimed?
2: On the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact: Was Hitler duped into thinking that Stalin would attack Poland simultaneously from the east?
Hoggan deals with the Gleiwitz incident in just two paragraphs (on pp. 636-7) and the accompanying footnotes. He does not pretend to know exactly what happened, but considers that the importance of the incident was greatly exaggerated at the Nuremberg Trials and since.
I don’t believe the M-R Pact said anything about simultaneous attack. The German campaign in Poland went so well that they did end up warning Stalin not to wait too long before taking action.
Fortunately for Poland’s overconfident government, the mighty British Empire immediately began an all-out offensive, saving their buddies on the Baltic just in the nick of time from foreign domination, and preserving their free and democratic way of life for all time. Who could ever forget Winston Churchill’s role in the valiant landing on the German coast in 1939, taking point in the thick of gunfire upon his white steed, while his bulldog ran after him eager to bite some jerries?
More seriously, for item 1, my take (other than given on the link above) is that the Gleiwitz attack is just one of several border incidents carried out by Poland, pretty clearly in context of their recent mobilization. I’m waiting any day now for the History Channel to clarify that one for the record. Let me check the TV Guide again and see if it’s there yet… Aww, dang! Surely next week…
For item 2, I’d have to look at how the pact’s secret protocol is worded to say for sure. At first glance, it seems like a contingency plan in the event (deemed fairly likely by then) that relations would deteriorate further and war would result. The offer to divide Poland was a quid pro quo to avoid Soviet interference. When the Soviets did invade two weeks later, the response by Britain and France was “You better knock it off, or else!”
The Anglo-Polish pact seems to have had its own secret protocol, only released (?inserted) after the war, which stipulated that only an attack by Germany would cause England to ahem…ride to the rescue.
https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Agreement_of_Mutual_Assistance_between_the_United_Kingdom_and_Poland-London_(1939)
Correct. The pact was worded generally, but was really understood to apply only to conflict with Germany. The British barely wagged their finger when Russia attacked Poland on September 17, proving the war was not really about defending Poland.
Czechs and Poles both had lasting historical claims on these regions since the constitution of their nation states in the early middle ages and they also needed these regions for their safety.
I would advice to read the book Slawenlegende. Die deutschen Opfer einer irrigen Geschichtsbetrachtung by Lothar Greil, an Austrian author.
Everybody can claim other people’s territory based on history or “safety.” Why should these arguments trump the national self-determination of other peoples?
Because ethnic borders may be very impractical and lead to constant conflicts (Jews and Arabs in the Levant now being a clear example). State borders have to make practical sense and correspond to geography and economy. Usually historical borders are such because historical development was a series of compromise amongst Christian monarchs who had a better judgement than modern so called democracies.
Ethnic borders are precisely the way to defuse conflicts, such as those in the Levant. Drawing borders based on the wisdom and compromises of Christian monarchs in centuries past is the worst geopolitical idea since Eurasiansism.
Surely you must know that Greil was an old naatzee. I dont think modern White nationalist should seek advice from a former SS- Untersturmfuehrer. On the other hand, if he claims Slaws are in fact Germans, he is not outright wrong. These two ethinc groups are very close both culturally and genetically. Both Panslawism and Pangermanism (or Pan-Hungarism) sound childish to-day. White nationalists should definitely not revive these 19th and early 20th century conflicts. They played out amongst young and demographicaly virile nations and their main arguments where language differences and territorial claims (in terms of agriculture, raw materials, military defense etc.). None of these matter now as all these nations are prey to capitalist globalisation and multiculturalism.
@ Greg Johnson:
“In a word,”no” to colonialism, “yes” to nationalism.”
“… since the old colonial empires are vectors for flooding different European countries.”
But then, it seems to me, you advocate some kind of “cordon sanitaire” ?
But is that feasible ? The West needs natural resources from these countries and keep them friendly/corrupted/exploitable/etc (even Ukraine and Russia at least up to Ural is considered fair game and NATO/EU will do everything to secure these spaces against Eurasian plans).
As the saying goes: you can not have cake and it it too !
Why can’t we simply buy things without either conquering or importing people?
@Guest, December 19, 2023 at 12:31 pm
“At least since 1848 German nationalists pushed agressively to dominate East-Central Europe whilest Poles and Czechs pushed back against German expansionism (Pan- Germanism).” …
“It seems to me that smaller white nations should be given their safe-spaces within geographically defensible boarders, even though they may enclose some minorities of larger nations, that already have their own large states. With Ukraine, the problem is it was given too much. With Israel, the problem is it was given too little (The 1948 boarders make no sense – Arabs already had a dozen of states by that time.).”
1
Starting in 1848 conveniently overlooks the prologue to German “expansionism”. Let’s start in 1618 and the Thirty Years War—essentially an open season on all Germans and German lands by sundry European powers. Skipping a bunch of smaller wars, we come to the destruction of the Holy Roman Empire (Germany) by France’s paragon of democracy, Napoleon. By the time 1848 rolls around, it seems Germans had had enough of other people traipsing across their land and decided it was payback time—IOW standard human nature response—and to get some strategic depth to make it harder to get attacked.
“It seems to me that smaller white nations should be given their safe-spaces within geographically defensible boarders, even though they may enclose some minorities of larger nations”
The best way to have provided this protection for White nations in 1939 was to have let Germany continue the consolidation of its lands and the building itself up as a bulwark against the looming Asiatic threat.
“With Ukraine, the problem is it was given too much. With Israel, the problem is it was given too little”
No, Ukraine was given less than the actual extent of Ukrainian speaking lands.
With Israel, it should never have been given an inch.
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