Who started both World Wars?

[dafydd]

What do you mean, I got all my information from history books.
Point is, you don't like the historians like Buchanan, Scheil, Schultze-Rhonhof, Irving and many others whom I refer to.

Your problem.

They are not historians.

 

[metamars]

Anybody knowledgeable about political maneuvering leading to WW2 care to comment?

I found the following fascinating, and plausible. However, I've not read up on WW2 history, with the minor exception of the air wars, particulary the fighter planes of that era. Bascially, it says that the growth of the Nazis were set up by Western powers, principally because they wanted Germany to attack Communist USSR. The Soviets were actually far more interested in collective security than France and Britain, but only made a separate deal with the Nazis because they comprehended the treachery and agenda of the West.

The US was a reluctant joiner to this evil strategy, which mostly back-fired.

From Stalin, appeasement, and the Second World War

Few acts of great power diplomacy have been the subject of such vilification, misrepresentation, distortion and slander as the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact. A stream of books, articles and programmes continues to be published and broadcast about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, designed to show that pre-war fascism was actually the same thing as Soviet Communism, that Hitler and Stalin were partners in crime, that the West was virtuous and even politically virginal and—above all—that there was no Anglo-American collusion with, and encouragement of, the Nazis. The truth was different—but the Nazi-Soviet Pact serves as a fig-leaf to cover British and American embarrassment. It was their policy which led to the Second World War. They'd rather we forgot.

Blinded by hysterical anti-communism, suffused with imperial delusions of grandeur, the British establishment in fact had only one foreign policy goal since the signing of the Versailles Treaty which ended the First World War, twenty years before. As Thorstein Veblen had said, the desire to destroy Bolshevism 'was not written into the text of the Treaty [but was] the parchment upon which that text was written.' Hitler's seemingly superhuman intelligence, his ability to wrap the canny politicians of London, Paris and Washington around his little finger, resulted from nothing more than their own willingness to be duped. Actually they had no illusions about the Nazis: British statesmen referred to Hitler as 'the little corporal' and when British Foreign Minister Lord Halifax first encountered Hitler at Berchtesgaden, he mistook the Reich Chancellor for a butler. The Nazi's star diplomat, Herr von Ribbentrop, was universally derided in London as 'Herr Brickendrop' for his gaffes such as his propensity to give Nazi salutes to the king. What fascinated the financiers and patricians of London and Washington was not the Nazis' own illusions of Nietzschean grandeur but the aroma of easy money, the sexiness of raw power, which always goes with criminality and which explains the perennial proximity of bankers to gangsters. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, was about as sexy as a workmen's social club in Barnsley. Earnest proletarian diplomats naturally cut no ice in the western corridors of power (British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain counted the Downing Street silver service, on the one occasion he felt obliged to receive Soviet ambassador Maisky, whose impassioned warnings about Hitler's intentions impressed him not at all. Chamberlain viscerally hated the Bolsheviks).

The above seems quite consistent with the following (again, I haven't studied this, so can't speak to its veracity), that a) American capital was instrumental in building up Germany prior to WW2, and that b) the Nazi political apparatus received cash from "abroad", including America. From Episodes 5. Who paid for World War II?

Thus, I.G. Farben, the company that became the German war machine’s key component, was under the control of Rockefeller’s Standard Oil at the time it funded 45 percent of Hitler’s election campaign in 1930. Through General Electric, J.P. Morgan controlled the German radio and electrical industry in the form of AEG and Siemens (by 1933, General Electric owned a 30 percent stake in AEG). Through telecom company ITT, he controlled 40 percent of Germany’s telephone network and 30 percent of aircraft manufacturer Focke-Wulf. Opel was taken over by the Dupont family’s General Motors. Henry Ford held a 100 percent stake in Volkswagen. In 1926, with the participation of Rockefeller bank, Dillon Reed and Co., the second largest industrial monopoly emerged – metallurgical firm Vereinigte Stahlwerke (Unified Steel Trusts) of Thyssen, Flick, Wolf, Fegler, etc.
..
Simultaneously, a political force was being financed that would be called upon to play a crucial role in the Anglo-American plans – the Nazi party and Adolf Hitler himself.

..
On January 4, 1932, at a meeting between Adolf Hitler, German Chancellor Franz von Papen and Montague Norman, a secret agreement was reached securing funding for the Nazi Party. The American politician, Dulles, was also present at this meeting – something his biographers don’t like to mention. On January 14, 1933, Hitler held a meeting with Kurt von Schroeder, a Nazi-sympathizing banker, von Papen and Kepler, where the Hitler’s program was fully approved. It was here that the final path for the Nazis’ rise to power was laid, and on January 30, Hitler became chancellor. Then began the fourth stage of the strategy."

 

[Tolls]

Anybody knowledgeable about political maneuvering leading to WW2 care to comment?

I found the following fascinating, and plausible. However, I've not read up on WW2 history, with the minor exception of the air wars, particulary the fighter planes of that era. Bascially, it says that the growth of the Nazis were set up by Western powers, principally because they wanted Germany to attack Communist USSR. The Soviets were actually far more interested in collective security than France and Britain, but only made a separate deal with the Nazis because they comprehended the treachery and agenda of the West.

The US was a reluctant joiner to this evil strategy, which mostly back-fired.

From Stalin, appeasement, and the Second World War


The above seems quite consistent with the following (again, I haven't studied this, so can't speak to its veracity), that a) American capital was instrumental in building up Germany prior to WW2, and that b) the Nazi political apparatus received cash from "abroad", including America. From Episodes 5. Who paid for World War II?

Oh dear.
For that first quote, they are clearly trying to shoehorn stuff into their idea that no-one took the Nazis serisouly in Britain. I mean, when Halifax was Foreign Secretary (early 1938 on) Britain was already in a major rearming process in reaction to German rearmament, and with a view that Germany was likely to be starting a war we would have to get involved in. So mentioning his mis-identification of Hitler is entirely meaningless.

And the idea that Chamberlain did not recognise the threat is nonsense. Making out that Maisky was telling him something he didn't already know.

And then to tie it all up with some 30 year conspiracy to battle bolshevism...oh, and throw in some industrialists for good measure. Dear me.

 

[Laeke]

metamars:
So let me get this straight: 15 years after the most gruesome and devastating war fought on its soil, France would think it was a good idea to support a revanchist nervous young man on our very border?

A strong Germany, Nazi or not, was definitely not in French interests, and definitely more of a menace that a Communist Russia that was left broken by the war and the revolution. That was the whole point of the Versailles Treaty. Please note that when Germany sought to start illegal re-armement in the 1920's, they did so in USSR.

In 1934, Mein Kampf is published in French... against the will of Hitler. A book edition close to Maurras (Famous conservative thinker in France) chose to publish it to expose the dangers of an Hitler-led Germany. Hitler will sue the editor in 1936, who decided thus to give 500 copies to French deputies so they could judge by themselves.

France was very well aware of the potential danger of Nazi Germany for her, that is one of the motivations of the French-Soviet pact of 1935. While the text itself was a failure, it clearly shows that France and USSR were aware of their respective situations (extended analysis in French). And French re-armement was on-going in 1936.

The second link you give, besides the usual confused rhetoric and barrage of unsourced names and cherry picked quotes, has a serious flaw: if you look seriously at the German politics and the rise of the Nazi party, you will see that Hitler rise to power was not "insured" by any means. It involved many factors which were not up to him. Even in the 1933 elections, which the Nazi party rigged as much as it was possible to them, Hitler failed to gain 50% of the votes. He still had to do a lot of shwred political intrigues after that to get what he wanted. A lot of wrenches cold have foiled the "master plan". It was a lot more complex and subtle than the rapid explanation we get in school (1929 crisis leading to unemployement, and BOOM: Nazi Germany!).

 

[dudalb]

metamars:
So let me get this straight: 15 years after the most gruesome and devastating war fought on its soil, France would think it was a good idea to support a revanchist nervous young man on our very border?

A strong Germany, Nazi or not, was definitely not in French interests, and definitely more of a menace that a Communist Russia that was left broken by the war and the revolution. That was the whole point of the Versailles Treaty. Please note that when Germany sought to start illegal re-armement in the 1920's, they did so in USSR.

In 1934, Mein Kampf is published in French... against the will of Hitler. A book edition close to Maurras (Famous conservative thinker in France) chose to publish it to expose the dangers of an Hitler-led Germany. Hitler will sue the editor in 1936, who decided thus to give 500 copies to French deputies so they could judge by themselves.

France was very well aware of the potential danger of Nazi Germany for her, that is one of the motivations of the French-Soviet pact of 1935. While the text itself was a failure, it clearly shows that France and USSR were aware of their respective situations (extended analysis in French). And French re-armement was on-going in 1936.

The second link you give, besides the usual confused rhetoric and barrage of unsourced names and cherry picked quotes, has a serious flaw: if you look seriously at the German politics and the rise of the Nazi party, you will see that Hitler rise to power was not "insured" by any means. His rise to power involved many factors which were not up to him. Even in the 1933 elections, which the Nazi party rigged as much as it was possible to them, Hitler failed to gain 50% of the votes. He still had to do a lot of shwred political intrigues after that to get what he wanted. A lot of wrenches cold have foiled the "master plan".

That quotation by metamars seems to be getting pretty close to a whitewashing of Uncle Joe.
I just read the whole essay he linked to. It is pretty much a whitewashing of Stalin's foreign policy, mixed in with lots of good old fashioned Classic Communist rhetoric.

 

[Tolls]

That quotation by metamars seems to be getting pretty close to a whitewashing of Uncle Joe.
I just read the whole essay he linked to. It is pretty much a whitewashing of Stalin's foreign policy, mixed in with lots of good old fashioned Classic Communist rhetoric.

So does that mean we now have an unreconstructed Stalinist rewriting history as well as our resident Hitler-fan?

Deep joy...

 

[metamars]

I spent about half an hour looking for confirmation that Dulles was at the January 4, 1932 meeting where western financing for Hitler and the Nazis was secured. I couldn't find any.

I did run into this interesting tidbit:

The final London visit of Alfred Rosenberg was in May 1933, this time as one of the inner figures in the new Hitler government. He went directly to the country home in Buckhurst Park in Ascot of Sir Henri Deterding, the head of Royal Dutch Shell and arguably the world's most influential businessman. According to English press accounts, the two had a warm and eventful discussion. Rosenberg had first met Deterding during his 1931 London trip. Royal Dutch Shell had intimate contact with, and provided support for the German NSDAP. Though the details were kept secret, reliable British reports of the day were that Deterding had provided substantial financial support to the Hitler project in its critical early phases.

{Engdahl says on pages 58 and 62 of the book that Royal Dutch Shell was covertly owned by the British Government, and says on page 59 that Deterding served as a trusted agent of British secret intelligence.}

While Norman and the Bank of England had adamantly refused to advance a pfennig of credit to Germany at the critical period in 1931 (thus precipitating the banking and unemployment crisis which made desperate alternatives such as Hitler even thinkable to leading circles in Germany), as soon as Hitler had consolidated power, in early 1933, the same Montagu Norman moved with indecent haste to reward the Hitler government with vital Bank of England credit.

(emphasis mine)

Does anybody have any solid reference re Dulles' alleged attendance at the January 4, 1932 meeting?

 

[Tolls]

So you've chosen not to acknowledge anything anyone else has said regarding your previous two quotes.

 

[metamars]

I spent about half an hour looking for confirmation that Dulles was at the January 4, 1932 meeting where western financing for Hitler and the Nazis was secured. I couldn't find any.

I did run into this interesting tidbit:

(emphasis mine)

Does anybody have any solid reference re Dulles' alleged attendance at the January 4, 1932 meeting?

There was a January 4, 1933 (not 1932) meeting that both Dulles brothers were said to have attended:

In his book Aggression, Otto Lehmann-Russbeldt tells us that "Hitler was invited to a meeting at the Schroder Bank in Berlin on January 4, 1933. The leading industrialists and bankers of Germany tided Hitler over his financial difficulties and enabled him to meet the enormous debt he had incurred in connection with the maintenance of his private army. In return, he promised to break the power of the trade unions. On May 2, 1933, he fulfilled his promise."64

I took a quick look for reference 64, but couldn't find it.

So, Hitler, the breaker of unions who also, we're told, was an expositor of a "historic mission":

The West had been ready to let Hitler have his way in everything as long as he also performed the 'historic' mission proclaimed in Mein Kampf - to destroy Bolshevism and so correct an 'error of history'.

is supposed to have gotten funded by British and American sources.

An expectation by Hitler's financial angels in the Anglo-American sphere, that Hitler would shed German blood to destroy the USSR, seems eminently plausible to me. The fact that the plan didn't work out the way it was expected and/or hoped for doesn't mean that financing Hitler did not have primarily geopolitical goals. There's no guarantees in life, even for evil, powerful banker types.

 

[Tolls]

And now you're talking to yourself.

 

[Jono]

They are not historians.

Well all in all I'd have to say Irving is one but, for example, I recall Shermer noting that he's just not a very good (or was it accurate) theoretician. Heh, while I can't for the life of me remember who made the following comment (probably on the Axis History forums), someone once said Irving is just as much an historian as Goldhagen (of course, the person intended this to be a pun, as he didn't regard either as such).

 

[Wroclaw]

Bad as he is, at least Goldhagen is actually trained and has an advanced degree. Irving didn't even finish college.

 

[Jono]

Bad as he is, at least Goldhagen is actually trained and has an advanced degree. Irving didn't even finish college.

Yes speaking technically that is, Goldhagen has a noteworthy academic pedigree. But a real oddity nevertheless.
As it is, a more stable historian of the establishement, in every which way related to the given topic by comparison, would be Browning (imo).

 

[VonKleist]

There was a January 4, 1933 (not 1932) meeting that both Dulles brothers were said to have attended:

In his book Aggression, Otto Lehmann-Russbeldt tells us that "Hitler was invited to a meeting at the Schroder Bank in Berlin on January 4, 1933. The leading industrialists and bankers of Germany tided Hitler over his financial difficulties and enabled him to meet the enormous debt he had incurred in connection with the maintenance of his private army. In return, he promised to break the power of the trade unions. On May 2, 1933, he fulfilled his promise."64

The only meeting that Hitler attended on January 4th 1933 was in Cologne at the house of banker Kurt Freiherr von Schröder. Hitler took with him Rudolf Hess, Heinrich Himmler, and his economic advisor, Wilhelm Keppler, who had arranged the meeting.

Here's von Schröder's recollection of the meeting, which obviously didn't include the Dulles brothers:

"On 4 January 1933,Hitler, von Papen, Hess, Himmler and Keppler came to my house in Cologne. Hitler, von Papen and I went to my den where we were closeted in a discussion lasting about two hours. Hess, Himmler and Keppler did not participate in this discussion but were in the next room. Keppler, who had helped arrange this meeting, came from Berlin; von Papen came alone from his home in the Saar; and Hitler brought Hess and Himmler with him, as they were traveling with him to Lippe in connection with the election campaign. The discussion was only between Hitler and Papen; I personally had nothing to say in the discussion.
The meeting started about 11:30 A. M. and the first question was raised by Hitler as to why it was necessary to punish the two Nazis who had killed the Communist in Silesia. Von Papen explained to Hitler that it had been necessary to punish these two Nazis, although they had not been put to death, because the law was on the books and all political offenders under the law must have some punishment. He further explained to Hitler that it might be possible to get a pardon from President Hindenburg to give serious consideration to making Hitler the Chancellor at the time that Hindenburg met with Hitler and von Papen and that he had understood that Hindenburg was perfectly willing to discuss this matter with Hitler at that time. He said that it came as a great surprise and shock to him when Hindenburg was unwilling to do so and he felt that someone, probably von Schleicher, was responsible for the change in Hindenburg's point of view. Next, von Papen told Hitler that it seemed to him the best thing to have the conservatives and nationalists who had supported him join with the Nazis to form a government. He proposed that this new government should, if possible, be headed by Hitler and von Papen on the same level. Then Hitler made a long speech in which he said if he were made Chancellor, it would be necessary for him to be head of the government but that supporters of Papen could go into his (Hitler's) government as ministers when they were willing to go along with him in his policy of changing many things. These changes he outlined at this time included elimination of Social Democrats, Communists and Jews from leading positions in Germany and the restoration of order in public life. Von Papen and Hitler reached an agreement in principle so that many of the points which had brought them in conflict could be eliminated and they could find a way to get together. They agreed that further details would have to be worked out and that this could be done in Berlin or some other convenient place.

LINK

 

[Wroclaw]

Yes speaking technically that is, Goldhagen has a noteworthy academic pedigree. But a real oddity nevertheless.
As it is, a more stable historian of the establishement, in every which way related to the given topic by comparison, would be Browning (imo).

Not just i your o, either. Browning is pretty much viewed as the authority on the topic of individual culpability, "banality of evil," etc.

 

[dudalb]

Not just i your o, either. Browning is pretty much viewed as the authority on the topic of individual culpability, "banality of evil," etc.

His "Ordinary Men" is a classic.

 

[Laeke]

metamars
An expectation by Hitler's financial angels in the Anglo-American sphere, that Hitler would shed German blood to destroy the USSR, seems eminently plausible to me.

Oh Jeebus.
Yeah, no wonder this seems plausible, as it was Hitler whole point all this time, he wrote it himself in his 1925 book. He referred to the Drang nach Osten and made it very clear that ultimately Germany would have to expand to the East, subdue the people there to make room for German colonisation.
So ta-da, you're right!

Except the story has one major flaw: Your nefarious all-powerful bankers obviously did not do their research: Hitler's hostility to France (the deadly enemy, according to him) was clearly written down in the same book.
And the Anglo-American bankers could have probably have signed a truce with Hitler over Great Britain, as he was not really that eager to invade it. Or block further involvement of the USA. Can you believe those guys? They are able to carry out a decade long conspiracy, engineering the 1929 crisis along the way just to get their man to the top in Germany, but can't even take care of their own backyards.

But of course you can still try to go to the next failed travesty of history: The plan did not back-fire, as your Anglo-American bankers are in fact apatrids with no loyalty to nations, and they just used WWII to transition to a new balance of the world with the USA, where they are settled, as the major power emerging, all this to their benefit.

ProTip: The whole Nazi ideological movement takes its roots in their interpretation of German history or previous popular beliefs like the Volkisch movements. The Drang Nach Osten that Hitler mentioned was a direct and clear reference to a XIII century movement initiated by the Holy Roman Empire (on the advice of Anglo-American Merchants, no doubt, what a cunning master plan).
Nazis didn't appear in a vacuum, and in many ways they did expand on themes & ideas that already existed in Germany since the end of the XIX century or the German unification.

Not only do you faint to rediscover hot water in quite dishonest manners (claiming to engage an open discussion on a subject "you never studied about" only to spam pseudo-history under the guise of naiveté), but in the same movement you manage to deny the very idea of history itself.

 

[metamars]

The only meeting that Hitler attended on January 4th 1933 was in Cologne at the house of banker Kurt Freiherr von Schröder. Hitler took with him Rudolf Hess, Heinrich Himmler, and his economic advisor, Wilhelm Keppler, who had arranged the meeting.

Here's von Schröder's recollection of the meeting, which obviously didn't include the Dulles brothers:


LINK

Nice find, but how do you know that this was the only meeting that Hitler attended that day? Your reference says that the meeting lasted only 2 hours, then lunch, with all guests leaving by about 4 pm. Google maps gives the shortest driving route between Berlin and Cologne as 579 km, 5 hr:21m. That's 359 miles; eyeballing it, about 66 mph.

Don't know about the roads and speed limits back then, but if an airplane was available, I suppose the trip back might have only taken about 1 1/2 hours. Still lots of time for a meeting.... even if not during banker's hours.

 

[MG1962]

Schroder Bank in Berlin
So why didn't these German industrialist meet in a German bank?

 

[Laeke]

Nice find, but how do you know that this was the only meeting that Hitler attended that day?

Because History is not done via Google Maps but by looking for sources, like archives or testimonies, to try to determine facts. Saying another meeting was possible doesn't amount to anything.
Please quit your fake candid tone or respond to other messages.