Split Thread The causes and legality of the declaration of WWII

[Jack by the hedge]

The world would indeed be a very different place if the response to a country declaring its intention to invade and take over its neighbour was for the neighbour always to allow it to march in and simply rely on its citizens' peaceful protests to make the invaders see the error of their ways and go home.

The first effect I foresee is that anyone who had a resource worth taking would quickly find it grabbed by anyone who wanted it, only to be grabbed again by a larger and more powerful neighbour and so on.

 

[Michel H]

First, you strongly implied that Hitler's occupation of what was left of Czechoslovakia should not be taken as evidence that he wanted territory for any reason other than bringing ethnic Germans into Germany, because Hácha "agreed" to the occupation of Czechoslovakia. However, the parts of the article you omitted clearly indicate that Hitler was going to occupy the country with or without Czech cooperation, and that Hácha "agreed" only under extreme duress.

Second, after I called you on this, you pivoted back to your outrageous contention that the way to prevent wars is to refrain from resisting aggression, which is irrelevant to my point.




This is also irrelevant.

It seems that Hitler threatened to invade. Whether he would really have done so is less clear, because this could have started WWII a few months before September 1939. It is also of some interest to point out that the remaining part of Czechoslovakia (in March 1939) was never integrated into the German Reich. Instead, it became the "Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia" (I assume this had practical consequences when it comes to getting drafted into the German Army).

When you write "extreme duress", this seems exaggerated to me (he wasn't tortured). The sentence:

Hácha also signed into law legislation modeled after the Nazi Nuremberg Laws that discriminated against Czech Jews.

was important because it showed (or suggested) that Hácha had (like Pétain at some point) a pro-Nazi side.

In September 1939, war was declared by the UK and France to Germany (and this was followed quickly followed by some military operations, including the bombing of Munich), it was not Germany which declared war to the UK and France. You might say "they had to" because of their pacts of mutual assistance with Poland, but an interesting question which is usually not raised is "why were these pacts signed?". And I am afraid a possible answer is "because they wanted to play the role of policemen of Europe", and they couldn't stand the idea Germany could recover its lost territories after WWI. When you look at these pacts in this way, this give a certain view very different from from the usual one:"standing up to barbary".

In addition, the French declaration of war by president Lebrun was illegal because the French constitution required a vote by parliament ... which never happened. This was explained (in French) by controversial revisionist historian Vincent Reynouard in a fine video entitled: "La déclaration de guerre illégale en 1939 et le rôle de Pétain" ("The illegal declaration of war in 1939 and Pétain's role") which unfortunately has recently been removed by Dailymotion (but you can verify its existence by googling its title). This shows that, like in China, it remains difficult to defend some political truths in Western countries.

 

[SpitfireIX]

It seems that Hitler threatened to invade. Whether he would really have done so is less clear, because this could have started WWII a few months before September 1939.

Irrelevant; the point is that he told Hácha that Germany would invade with or without Czech cooperation. Further, how would it have started the war early, when France and Britain hadn't guaranteed what was left of Czechoslovakia? And your implied assumption that Hitler cared whether or not his actions could have started a war is at best highly questionable.

It is also of some interest to point out that the remaining part of Czechoslovakia (in March 1939) was never integrated into the German Reich. Instead, it became the "Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia" (I assume this had practical consequences when it comes to getting drafted into the German Army).

Also irrelevant; in fact it damages your already extremely weak case that Hitler's only war aim was integrating ethnic Germans into the Reich.

When you write "extreme duress", this seems exaggerated to me (he wasn't tortured).

So Göring's threatening to bomb Prague, which caused Hácha to suffer a heart attack, doesn't qualify as extreme duress? Only torture does? Also, even granting for the sake of argument that it doesn't, would the fact that he was only subjected to "moderate duress" somehow excuse Hitler's actions?

The sentence:

Hácha also signed into law legislation modeled after the Nazi Nuremberg Laws that discriminated against Czech Jews

was important because it showed (or suggested) that Hácha had (like Pétain at some point) a pro-Nazi side.

It suggests no such things, unless you can present evidence that Hácha signed the legislation willingly, and not under duress. Further, Pétain may have been a traitor to France (possibly) an anti-Semite (likely) and a reactionary (certainly), but he was not pro-Nazi.

In September 1939, war was declared by the UK and France to Germany (and this was followed quickly followed by some military operations, including the bombing of Munich), it was not Germany which declared war to the UK and France.

What is your source for Munich's having been bombed in 1939? The RAF didn't begin bombing industrial and civilian targets in Germany until after the Luftwaffe bombed Rotterdam in May, 1940, and one account I found says that Munich was first bombed in 1942.

You might say "they had to" because of their pacts of mutual assistance with Poland, but an interesting question which is usually not raised is "why were these pacts signed?". And I am afraid a possible answer is "because they wanted to play the role of policemen of Europe", and they couldn't stand the idea Germany could recover its lost territories after WWI. When you look at these pacts in this way, this give a certain view very different from from the usual one:"standing up to barbary".

No. This is just a ridiculous fantasy you've dreamed up in yet another lame attempt to delegitimize Britain and France's having declared war on Germany. Why would they suddenly have wanted to stop Germany from recovering lost territory from Poland, when Germany had already taken over and incorporated Austria and the Sudetenland, which together had a far greater land area, and far more ethnic Germans, than the territory that Germany had lost to Poland in 1919? Further, even if this were true, a significant portion of the territory that Germany had lost was the Alsace-Lorraine region, which Germany had taken from France in 1870, so France certainly had legitimate reasons for not wanting Germany to "recover its lost territories."

In addition, the French declaration of war by president Lebrun was illegal because the French constitution required a vote by parliament ... which never happened. This was explained (in French) by controversial revisionist historian Vincent Reynouard in a fine video entitled: "La déclaration de guerre illégale en 1939 et le rôle de Pétain" ("The illegal declaration of war in 1939 and Pétain's role") which unfortunately has recently been removed by Dailymotion (but you can verify its existence by googling its title). This shows that, like in China, it remains difficult to defend some political truths in Western countries.

You have provided no real evidence for this claim, and your continuing to repeat it will not magically make it true. Citing a "controversial revisionist historian" and Vichy supporters who only made the accusation after France had surrendered do not constitute providing real evidence.

 

[SpitfireIX]

It occurred to me to check and see whether Reynouard is actually a historian. It turns out that he's a Holocaust denier, and has no formal training in history (or law, for that matter). He has a degree in chemical engineering.

 

[HansMustermann]

In 1939, Britain actually banned attacks on ANY ground targets, because they didn't want to cause civilian casualties. And if we're talking specifically September 1939, the only targets they tried to bomb were German military vessels in port. Without a whole lot of success (the first two bombing raids combined killed 8 Kriegsmarine sailors total,) except discovering the hard way how vulnerable their bombers were to Luftwaffe fighters.

By the start of the winter, the Brits actually banned even bombing warships in port, on account that a stray bomb might hit the dock and kill some dock worker.

So basically all I'm seeing is the usual neo-nazi... err, I mean "alt-right" bullcrap, where OMG the allies started bombing cities first. Or even depending on how big a neo-nazi BS-er is peddling it, even continued bombing after the end of the war. (No, really, there are some peddlers of THAT nonsense too.)

 

[Michel H]

What is your source for Munich's having been bombed in 1939? The RAF didn't begin bombing industrial and civilian targets in Germany until after the Luftwaffe bombed Rotterdam in May, 1940, and one account I found says that Munich was first bombed in 1942.

I found this (and other things) in the wikipedia article: Timeline of World War II (1939) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_World_War_II_(1939)):

(October 1939) 10: British Prime Minister Chamberlain declines Hitler's offer of peace.
(October 1939) 12: French Premier Édouard Daladier declines Hitler's offer of peace.
(November 1939) 8: Hitler escapes a bomb blast in a Munich beerhall, where he was speaking on the anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923. British bombers coincidentally bomb Munich.

It is, however, possible that wikipedia is incorrect on this. Better sources indicate:

The Saar Offensive was a French ground invasion of Saarland, Germany, during the early stages of World War II, from 7 to 16 September 1939.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saar_Offensive)

The Blockade of Germany (1939–1945), also known as the Economic War, was carried out during World War II by the United Kingdom and France in order to restrict the supplies of minerals, metals, food and textiles needed by Nazi Germany

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_Germany_(1939-1945))
The Saar offensive and the blockade of Germany were actions of an aggressive nature against Germany taken very early in the war by France and the UK, following their declarations of war (after the invasion of Poland by Germany, of course).

Why did Britain (for example) sign an agreement of mutual assistance with Poland in 1939? The answer is given by wikipedia, and it is not a fantasy:

On 25 August, two days after the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the Agreement of Mutual Assistance between the United Kingdom and Poland was signed. The agreement contained promises of mutual military assistance between the nations if either was attacked by some "European country". The United Kingdom, sensing a trend of German expansionism, sought to discourage German aggression by this show of solidarity.

In other words, the UK, which was not directly threatened by Germany, wanted to be a "policeman of Europe".

 

[Michel H]

It occurred to me to check and see whether Reynouard is actually a historian. It turns out that he's a Holocaust denier, and has no formal training in history (or law, for that matter). He has a degree in chemical engineering.

I don't disagree with you on this. However, I found the historical and legal analysis he presented in his now deleted video rather good (he has a university degree, and is also a former teacher of mathematics). I would call a "historian" somebody who has done historical reseach of sufficient importance and quality. However, I disagree with many of Reynouard's ideas.

 

[Loss Leader]

In September 1939, war was declared by the UK and France to Germany (and this was followed quickly followed by some military operations, including the bombing of Munich), it was not Germany which declared war to the UK and France.

I'm sorry if this sounds dim, but does any country in the world - including Germany - dispute that German aggression inexorably led to war in Europe?

Does Poland agree that, rather than resist, they should have just let Germany build reinforced roads? Does Germany itself agree that England would have been left entirely alone if they hadn't themselves declared war on Germany?

I'll go even farther. Did East Germany, while it existed, ever agree with any of these statements?

Here's one I don't know for sure: Did Nazi Germany agree that they would have left the UK alone if it hadn't been for English aggression?

 

[SpitfireIX]

I don't disagree with you on this. However, I found the historical and legal analysis he presented in his now deleted video rather good (he has a university degree, and is also a former teacher of mathematics). I would call a "historian" somebody who has done historical reseach of sufficient importance and quality. However, I disagree with many of Reynouard's ideas.

in view of your outrageous and ridiculous views about collective security, your opinion of Reynouard's analysis is not in the least bit persuasive.

 

[Crossbow]

... snipped for relevance ...

This is not exactly what I am arguing, but, yes, I believe the 55 millions deaths of WWII could have easily been avoided if the UK and France had not declared war to Germany in 1939 (illegally because not approved by parliament in France's case; Nazi Germany did not want a new war with France and the UK at that time, partly because of ideological and racial reasons, and partly because of some bad memories from the previous war).

... snipped for relevance ...

Posted By: Agatha

While there have been several excellent posts in this thread refuting that various bits of nonsense posted by 'Michel H', I have not yet seen one which refutes this one bit of nonsense concerning how Hitler did not want a war with France and the UK (see the underscored poriton of his opening statement).

While it is true that Hitler did not want a war with France and the UK in 1939. Instead, what Hitler wanted, and expected, was for France and the UK to stay out of his way in 1939 while he conquered Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

And then, once the issue of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union was resolved to the favor of Germany, then Germany would go to war with France and the UK.

Hitler foolishly expected to conquer and occupy Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union in a matter of months and at the same time he expected France and the UK would do anything substantive to oppose his plans for Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union because Germany would be fighting the communists.

However, even if France and the UK would not have gone to war with Germany 1939, then Germany would have gone to war with France and the UK sooner or later all the same.

Posted By: Agatha

 

[Pacal]

This thread began as a discussion on the attack on a maternity ward in Afghanistan, but has been comprehensively derailed into a discussion on WWII. Accordingly I have split the thread.

Posted By: Agatha

This is not exactly what I am arguing, but, yes, I believe the 55 millions deaths of WWII could have easily been avoided if the UK and France had not declared war to Germany in 1939 (illegally because not approved by parliament in France's case; Nazi Germany did not want a new war with France and the UK at that time, partly because of ideological and racial reasons, and partly because of some bad memories from the previous war).

The invaded Polish people could have defended their rights and their sovereignty too, but I think they should have done this in a mostly peaceful way, though dialogue, demonstrations/protests and so on.

Perhaps it would also have been a good thing that the Poles accept the construction of a highway between East Prussia and the rest of Germany (with appropriate bridges), see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlinka, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Corridor.

Absolutely hilarious!!

Are you actually condemning the Poles for defending themselves, with arms, from an unprovoked attack!? Whatever.

Are you aware of he German False Flag operation in which they arranged for a fake "attack" on a German Radio post by "Poles" who were actually German prisoners dressed in Polish uniforms who were killed and placed around the installation? The attack on Poland was entirely unprovoked. Hitler wanted a war at least with Poland and was very concerned that someone would drop a mediation proposal at the last minute and spoil his fun. If Hitler's aims in Poland were limited he could simply have defeated Poland and forced the Poles to accept the annexation of the Danzig corridor. Nope he destroyed the Polish state, along with Russia, and started to brutally oppress the Poles in an effort to turn them into serfs.

The Nazi regime had absolutely no right to invade Poland in order to secure roads to East Prussia or control of Danzig. Hitler also admitted to his Generals before the attack that Danzig etc., were mere excuses and that the goal was to attack and destroy the Polish state.

This comment:

The invaded Polish people could have defended their rights and their sovereignty too, but I think they should have done this in a mostly peaceful way, though dialogue, demonstrations/protests and so on.

You have absolutely no idea of the nature of the Nazi regime. Their rule of Poland was brutal and vicious and the terror and murder started right away. Lets see mass murder of Polish civilians, mass arrests etc. Any demonstrations were crushed by force and terror. AS for "dialogue" you must be joking! Hitler's goal was the liquidation of the Polish state and the subordination of the Poles into a class of serfs to be exploited by the "superior race". Sadly., according to you, the victim committed the terrible crime a physically resisting an unprovoked attack. (Snark)

May I also point out Hitler's comments in Mein Kampf about wanting "Living Space" in Eastern Europe, mainly Russia., Or the idiocy in Nazi Ideology about Russia being Germanys "India".

May I also point out the huge military spending of the Nazi regime before the war started. by 1939, before the war Nazi Germany was spending c., 17% of is GNP on "Defence" for peace time regime such figures are incredible. In fact more than 50% of all government spending was "Defence". Germany before World War II was gearing up for War. Hitler of course wanted for the time being France and England to stay out of the War so that he could continue his plans of eastern conquest. But sooner or later he would have to deal with England and France. And certainly neither England or France wanted German hegemony in Europe which control of Eastern Europe would give Germany. I could go into here Hitler's plans for world hegemony but that is not needed.

 

[Pacal]

And even if Hitler had eventually attacked the Soviet Union to create a vast empire extending in Eastern Europe, somewhat similar to the Soviet Union, I believe, in the long run, the will of the people, and common sense tends to prevail over the fantasies of a half-mad dictator. Such an "empire" might have disintegrated peacefully like the Soviet Union in 1991.
(error correction, sorry)

Hilarious! I guess you don't know about "Plan East". The German plan for occupied Russia. Which would have made the brutality of Stalin's regime seem like a mild prelude to utter horror. This plan involved mass murder on a colossal scale, along with mass starvation and the forcible deportation of tens of millions to Siberia. The initial phase of the plan would have involved according to the Nazi idiots at least 20 million deaths. And of course much of the remaining population would be subject to later liquidation and the remnants reduced to a subject serf population, which would be brutally oppressed. Hitler planned his war in the East to be a war of annihilation and to a large extent it was. Forty years of this sort of rule would have been much worst than even High Stalinism.

Since however you are taking seriously the crap given out by a Holocaust denier, who are by definition liars, I guess you don't know this.

 

[Pacal]

Trying to oppose Adolf Hitler in wartime, when Germany was under allied bombing, was certainly very dangerous. I am not surprised several members of the group you mention ended up executed.

Perhaps they could have criticized a little more the UK and US, who had demanded unconditional surrender by Germany, Italy and Japan in January 1943 (Casablanca conference).

Wow!! You actually have the unmitigated gall to condemn The White Rose!! Whose "crimes" consisted of printing and distributing pamphlets and writing graffiti condemning the war!

You even state that they should have condemned the demand for unconditional surrender. Why? It is always so easy to condemn the other guys atrocities. The White Rose movement was almost entirely motivated by moral reaction to Nazi atrocities, which they knew about in sickening detail and which they felt that in some small way they could do something about. But no they should have condemned the Allies more. Why? The Nazi propaganda machine was already doing that at hysterical decibel levels while being absolutely silent about it's own spectacular atrocities. (And in fact trying to actively suppress detailed knowledge of same.) So it took great moral and physical courage to try to combat this ignorance.

I should point out that in Britain and the USA speech condemning area bombing etc., did not lead to executions.

 

[Pacal]

Well, assuming you live in an occupied country by Germany around 1940, your best course of action is probably to do nothing special, and to obey the orders of the occupying power (and, if you are a Jew, try to hide, or hide your identity, though I think the French Jews were actually generally not deported by the Germans during the German occupation of France), at least for some time.

My mother, born in 1933, and who unfortunately died a few days ago from COVID-19, lived the occupation period by Germany in Belgium, and, believe it or not, she once told me that, at some point, the Germans had oranges distributed in schools, and they said this was a present from the German military (!). The British and Americans were more distributing bombs from the sky, I believe (business as usual ).

Nevertheless, the Germans were not well liked by most Belgian people at the end of the war, and many felt happy to be "liberated".

Sorry about your mother.

As for the rest. Hilarious! The fact you put "liberated" in quotation marks in amusing . So it really wasn't "liberation". So what was it? Certainly the vast majority of the people of Belgium felt it has liberation.

No doubt the Belgium workers forcibly taken to Germany to work, the people tortured by the SS and Gestapo and the overall repressive system instituted by the Nazis, including torture etc., are just not important. Or how about the more than 20,000 Jews living in Belgium murdered by the Nazis? And of course the fate of those found "guilty" of the "crime" of hiding Jews.

And it appears according to you, that because the German Army on one or more occasions gave oranges to School Children in Belgium that it was so unfair that the people of Belgium ended up not liking the Germans. Whatever.

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

I like how some Hitler fanboys keep ignoring all evidence.

Micheal H claims the occupied poles should have peacefully protested.

Thus ignoring the clear nazi policies of exterminating the poles as a race which were implemented from the moment the war was over in Poland, and the fact that when occupied peoples NOT slated for extermination protested these protests were violently suppressed.

 

[HansMustermann]

It also helps if one understands what the racial views of the Nazis were. Which they hadn't invented, but adopted nevertheless. And sadly it didn't die with the actual NSDAP either.

Basically the view was that (successful) empires can only be founded and run by Aryans, and they fall when they get clogged by too many subhumans. Quite literally. Rome for them for example started to go downhill fast when all the immigrants polluted them.

And again, sad to say, they weren't the first, nor the last to take such views. It may not be framed in terms of "kill the jews" any more, or not overtly, but states decaying because of all those pesky immigrants... well, let's just say, you can still find people on youtube preaching that kind of ideology.

It must also be said that not all Nazis were created equal, even in that aspect. Himmler for example believed he could "purify" all sorts of non-Aryans if they fight in his special SS units. Basically the ones who were brave enough and survived, would be good enough. That's actually a slightly saner version than his purifying souls ideas, but basically that's the end result: you can become a good enough second class citizen if you earn it in battle.

Hitler pretty much would have none of that, although he did let some into the army and especially SS. If nothing else, for pragmatic reasons. If anyone wants to get shot at by the Red Army, well, you could do worse than letting some pad the front line.

Once you understand that -- including that in his set of premises, Hitler probably genuinely believed that he was saving the world -- it's pretty clear that there was not much hope in the long run for the Poles and generally Slavs, Roma, Jews, etc. There's no peaceful demonstration that will change the mind of someone, when his views are basically that you're the menace that he's saving the world from.

 

[Michel H]

I'm sorry if this sounds dim, but does any country in the world - including Germany - dispute that German aggression inexorably led to war in Europe?

Does Poland agree that, rather than resist, they should have just let Germany build reinforced roads? Does Germany itself agree that England would have been left entirely alone if they hadn't themselves declared war on Germany?

I'll go even farther. Did East Germany, while it existed, ever agree with any of these statements?

Here's one I don't know for sure: Did Nazi Germany agree that they would have left the UK alone if it hadn't been for English aggression?

Many people (even in Germany and Japan) have adopted the British and American viewpoints on the real responsabilities for WWII.

In my opinion, if the UK and France had not declared war to Hitler in 1939 (even though Hitler wanted peace with them), there would have been a 90% chance he would have attacked neither France nor the UK (if neither of these two countries had showed hostility towards Germany), but only a 40% chance he wouldn't have attacked the Soviet Union.

I believe the Anglo-French decision to attack was a blunder which led to the invasion of France, Belgium and the Netherlands, more deaths, bombing and suffering, more persecution for the Jews, a climate of hate and violence and solved really nothing (at least, in the short term).

 

[Pacal]

Many people (even in Germany and Japan) have adopted the British and American viewpoints on the real responsabilities for WWII.

In my opinion, if the UK and France had not declared war to Hitler in 1939 (even though Hitler wanted peace with them), there would have been a 90% chance he would have attacked neither France nor the UK (if neither of these two countries had showed hostility towards Germany), but only a 40% chance he wouldn't have attacked the Soviet Union.

I believe the Anglo-French decision to attack was a blunder which led to the invasion of France, Belgium and the Netherlands, more deaths, bombing and suffering, more persecution for the Jews, a climate of hate of violence and solved really nothing (at least, in the short term).

If Hitler had really wanted peace with France and Britain he would not have invaded Poland. He knew quite well that by doing so he was risking war with them. But the idiot did it anyway. If Hitler had really wanted peace he would have not had his insane level of military expenditure. Your percentages are totally bogus. But I suppose turning over much of Eastern Europe over to Hitler and his Nazi goons should not have been a problem. (snark)

Hitler had shown repeatedly he could not be trusted. His annexation of Bohemia and Moravia had convinced virtually everyone in France and England of that. (The Czechs were not made citizens of the Reich because they were "inferior" slavs.)

Nothing forced Hitler to do anything and even after his invasion of Poland, if his demands had in fact been "reasonable" he could simply after his successful invasion negotiated with the Polish Government to agree with the annexation of Polish corridor. He did not! Instead he liquidated the Polish state and proceeded to institute a reign of terror deliberately designed to eliminate Polish identity and reduce the Poles to serfs.

And may I again point out that Hitler had plans for hegemony in Europe and eventually global ambitions all of which put him on a collision course with Britain and France.

Nothing the Britain and France did forced Hitler to do anything. He mass murdered Jews because he wanted to. He invaded because he wanted to. He indulged in a myriad of atrocities because he wanted to and it felt good. As for a climate of hate - welcome to Nazi Germany early 1939. (Like Cersi in Game of Thrones)

 

[Michel H]

But I suppose turning over much of Eastern Europe over to Hitler and his Nazi goons should not have been a problem. (snark)

No, I agree that this would have been a real problem (if it had happened at all). I just think that declaring war to Germany (as the UK and France did, illegally in the case of France, because without a proper vote by both chambers of parliament) wasn't the good answer to this threat. This just led to more violence and a lot of unnecessary suffering for many French, British and Belgian citizens.

It might be argued that the conquest of the American West in the nineteeth century was a problem too (from the point of view of the basic human rights of Indians sent to reservations), but fortunately the British and the French did not try to solve this problem by declaring war to the U.S.A.

A comparison between the Nazis and the U.S. is made in this recent book:
The American West and the Nazi East: A Comparative and Interpretive Perspective
https://www.amazon.com/American-West-Nazi-East-Interpretive/dp/023027515X

Some comments about this book (found on the Amazon webpage):
Challenging and provocative, this well-researched and clearly written account utilizes the cutting-edge approaches of comparative genocide studies to identify what Kakel rightly calls 'disquieting underlying patterns of empirical similarity' in the genocidal policies and practices that flowed from colonial ambitions in the American West and the Nazi East. Kakel's judicious and insightful analysis can withstand the controversies that are likely to swirl around this important book.

Although historians have recognized that the Euro-American colonization of North America inspired the Nazi war for "living space," Carroll Kakel's study is the first sustained and detailed comparison of the American West and the Nazi East. These episodes of territorial expansionism, which combined settler colonialism with the expulsion and killing of indigenous people, occurred at different times and they evinced important differences arising from their specific contexts. Nevertheless, their similarities, among them the obsession with "space" as vital to national survival and the desire to expel or eliminate racial "undesirables" which Kakel demonstrates with rich detail and telling side-by-side comparisons, show conclusively that empire and race lay at the foundations of the American Republic, and that American expansionism became the most important imperialist model for the National Socialists.

 

[HansMustermann]

Just repeating that it's illegal, doesn't make it so. I realize that for neo-nazi apologists it's the best they can do, but it still doesn't become a valid argument just because someone is unable to make a better one.