WWII - an unnecessary waste and the fault of England?

[Makalakumu]

If we point the finger at the Bank of England, then I might be more agreeable to the premise of this thread. The BoE funded Hitler as much as other major international financiers.

Also, what about the Royals? Wasn't there a number of princes (and the king himself?) who adored Hitler and wanted to join his side?

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Just for the record.....Texas is a separate country. Ask anyone from Texas.

 

[Tez3]

If we point the finger at the Bank of England, then I might be more agreeable to the premise of this thread. The BoE funded Hitler as much as other major international financiers.

Also, what about the Royals? Wasn't there a number of princes (and the king himself?) who adored Hitler and wanted to join his side?[/quote]

No the king, the current Queen's father certainly didn't support Hitler, I think you mean his older brother the Duke of Windsor who abdicated in 1936 to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson. the two younger brothers certainly didn't either. I believe some of the German relatives of the Roayl Family supported Hitler though.

"Frozen out by the British royals, the duke and duchess's alleged pro-German sympathies became the subject of an FBI investigation in 1941.

The FBI was told that during the German invasion of France the previous year, the duchess was said to have passed information to the Nazis' foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop. Officers were told that von Ribbentrop had been the duchess's lover when he was ambassador to Britain in 1936, sending her 17 carnations every day to remind her of the number of times they had slept together."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2699035.stm

I've never heard of the Bank of England supporting Hitler but when I Googled it all I got were reams of links to some very weird things, mostly conspiracy theorists 'porn' as well as apologists for Hitler. this is just weird
lol.
http://www.redicecreations.com/specialreports/2006/10oct/illappeasement.html

I don't think the Bank had the means to help Germany as such, it's not a bank as we use to put out pay, savings etc into.
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/about/index.htm




Further to my mentioning the American Amabassador to the Court of St James I did find this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_P._Kennedy,_Sr.

 

[Tez3]

Just for the record.....Texas is a separate country. Ask anyone from Texas.

all the more reason ot get it accurate then!

Didn't you nick it from the Mexicans who had it first? :ultracool

 

[Bob Hubbard]

all the more reason ot get it accurate then!

Didn't you nick it from the Mexicans who had it first? :ultracool

No, actually Texas broke away from Mexico & became an independent country (1836), then joined the US (1845). It seceded in 1861, was readmitted in 1870 after several years of "Reconstruction".

Of course, the WWII tie in is that theres a ton of military related industry there as a result of WWII investments.

 

[Tez3]

No, actually Texas broke away from Mexico & became an independent country (1836), then joined the US (1845). It seceded in 1861, was readmitted in 1870 after several years of "Reconstruction".

Of course, the WWII tie in is that theres a ton of military related industry there as a result of WWII investments.

Not good at making their minds up then.

Ah that's the thing as well though isn't it, America before joining in the war was actually selling arms to both sides, that stopped when they joined the Allies and they just sold arms to the one side. We only stopped paying you a couple of years ago.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6215847.stm

We had to pay for all the aid, after beating Germany you gave it to them for free. Oh well. What's a big debt between cousins. Perhaps we should do the thing in the Peter Sellers fim 'The Mouse That Roared' declare war on you and surrender before hostilities start so you are obliged to support us for evermore rofl.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

"declare war on you and surrender before hostilities start so you are obliged to support us for evermore"

That sounds very French to me..I mean, they are the experts in surrendering n all.

 

[Tez3]

"declare war on you and surrender before hostilities start so you are obliged to support us for evermore"

That sounds very French to me..I mean, they are the experts in surrendering n all.

Ah now you see thats where we get back to who's who in a country, France is a big place, it appears to be one place but it's not and while the French may have surrendered, the Provencal, the Basques, the Normans, the Bretons, the Corsicans didn't, they formed Resistance movements. All these regions were compelled into being part of France but ask any of these where they come from and they will tell you their region first, before saying they are French. The Alsace think they are German anyway so no surrending was needed. In Provence you will find a lot of war memorials to the members of the Maquis who gave their lives for freedom fighting the Germans, many of their families and fellow townspeople and villagers were shot by the Germans in reprisal. As is the way, they aren't forgotten either.

 

[Ken Morgan]

"declare war on you and surrender before hostilities start so you are obliged to support us for evermore"

That sounds very French to me..I mean, they are the experts in surrendering n all.

Not the French Canadians,

“French-Canadian volunteers were front and centre, in their own units, throughout the war, highlighted by actions at Dieppe (Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal), Italy (Royal 22e Régiment), the Normandy beaches (Le Régiment de la Chaudière), the thrust into Holland (Le Régiment de Maisonneuve), and in the bombing campaign over Germany (No. 425 Squadron RCAF).”

One of our jokes up here about ourselves, is that we have the largest French population that never surrendered in WW2. Damn good soldiers. They’ve done more then a few tours in Afghanistan in the last 9 years too.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

I'd rather have 1 good Canadian or 1 Good Brit (or Scot or whomever from the UK) or Aussie or whatever the good folks from New Zealand are referred to, than 100 heavily armed Frenchmen behind me. No, I don't like France.

 

[Ken Morgan]

many of their families and fellow townspeople and villagers were shot by the Germans in reprisal. As is the way, they aren't forgotten either.

One of the places I want to visit before i die.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oradour-sur-Glane

 

[Bruno@MT]

I'd rather have 1 good Canadian or 1 Good Brit (or Scot or whomever from the UK) or Aussie or whatever the good folks from New Zealand are referred to, than 100 heavily armed Frenchmen behind me. No, I don't like France.

You do realize that the French 'surrender monkey' meme was wartime propaganda to keep the American citizenry from losing heart about confronting the Nazis, right?

 

[Bruno@MT]

Due to the number of parties involved and the extremely high volatility of the situation, WWII is the ultimate 'what if'. And all the parties involved carry part of the blame, not just the Germans. However, there is 1 good thing that came out of WWII: Peace.

Maybe to Americans this is not as apparent, but currently, Europe is going through an unprecedented period of peace. We've had peace (more or less) for 65 years now. This has never happened before in western Europe. We've had 100 year wars, not 100 years peace.

After WWII, Europe was flattened. So we really had to pull ourselves up from our bootstraps. Noone had any fight left in them. It is very possible that without WWII, Europe would not have become the strong union it is now.

 

[K-man]

As a 'colonial' I feel obliged to once again come to the defence of the Motherland. I think it's a bit cute to blame Britain for 'causing' WW2. For a start the signatories for the Treaty of Versailles were France, Britain, Italy and the USA. if one is to blame then all must be to blame.

For a while there I was really starting to feel sorry for poor Hitler. I mean those bloody Poms and their mates shooting down all his bombers as they were trying to bomb London.

By the start of what became known as the Battle of Britain the Luftwaffe had 2,800 aircraft stationed in France, Belgium, Holland and Norway. This force outnumbered the RAF four to one.

"The Royal Air Force roll of honour for the Battle of Britain recognises 595 non-British pilots (out of 2,936) as flying at least one authorised operational sortie with an eligible unit of the RAF or Fleet Air Arm between 10 July and 31 October 1940. These included 145 Poles, 127 New Zealanders, 112 Canadians, 88 Czechoslovaks, 28 Belgians, 32 Australians, 25 South Africans, 13 French, 10 Irish, 7 Americans, and one each from Jamaica, the British Mandate of Palestine, and Southern Rhodesia."

That was 1940!

If the terms of Versailles were harsh, Lend Lease was even worse. It took Britain 60 years to pay off the debt, but they did pay it off! Germany had stopped its payments after less than 20 years. Their debt was considered excessive because it would take 70 years to pay off the debt. Obviously 60 years is not deemed excessive! I doubt that Russia ever paid back its WW2 debts.

It is interesting that although Britain and the US declared war on Japan, the US never declared war on Germany. The US had declared neutrality at the beginning of hostilities and it was actually Germany that declared war on the US. There were lots of American companies making lots of money supplying all sides until Dec 41.


Living in a democracy we have to sometimes pay a price for those freedoms we take for granted, like freedom of speech. Unless we quote peer reviewed articles we end up with people like David Irving and his ilk being quoted as a reliable source because his message is in print. In many other counties such a manuscript would never see the light of day and the author would be left to rot in jail. I suspect that Pat Buchanan may be from the same mould as Irving. He avoided military service in 1960 on medical grounds and worked for Nixon after Watergate. He suggested Nixon burned the evidence, that is the tapes. He also called Mark Felt, Associate FBI Director (Deep Throat), sneaky, dishonest and criminal. To my mind, I would be questioning anything he wrote. We currently have all the conspiracy theories of 9/11. Does anyone really believe that the American Government was directly responsible for the atrocities of that day?

To summarise I would say, the world was a different place in the early 20th century. There were many complex issues which precipitated both WW1 and WW2, but to blame Britain for the devastation and loss of life caused by WW2 is, to my mind, a travesty.

 

[Makalakumu]

It took Britain 60 years to pay off the debt, but they did pay it off! Germany had stopped its payments after less than 20 years. Their debt was considered excessive because it would take 70 years to pay off the debt. Obviously 60 years is not deemed excessive! I doubt that Russia ever paid back its WW2 debts.

If all of these countries had to pay off their WWII debts, who lent them money to fight the war? If we had to point fingers at anyone, I would have to say that it was the people who funded it.

Any sane person would say that they don't want war, but at the top of society in all of the countries involved, people who had the ability to actually get the ball rolling knowing full well that war would be the result, the desired result. War = profits that are generated by the interest on debt.

Wars would not happen without the debt to finance them.

 

[K-man]

If all of these countries had to pay off their WWII debts, who lent them money to fight the war? If we had to point fingers at anyone, I would have to say that it was the people who funded it.

Any sane person would say that they don't want war, but at the top of society in all of the countries involved, people who had the ability to actually get the ball rolling knowing full well that war would be the result, the desired result. War = profits that are generated by the interest on debt.

Wars would not happen without the debt to finance them.

I agree completely. Without doubt the greatest supplier of munitions and equipment in those days was the US. But they weren't alone.

From Wiki I'll post a quote that outlines Lend/Lease.

Lend-Lease (Public Law 77-11)[1] was the name of the program under which the United States of America supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, China, France and other Allied nations with vast amounts of war material between 1941 and 1945. It began in March 1941, over 18 months after the outbreak of the European war in September 1939, but before the U.S. entrance into the war in December 1941. It was called An Act Further to Promote the Defense of the United States. This act also ended the pretense of the neutrality of the United States. Hitler recognized this and consequently had submarines attack US ships such as the SS Robin Moor, an unarmed merchant steamship destroyed by a German U-boat on 21 May 1941 outside of the war zone.
A total of $50.1 billion (equivalent to $759 billion at 2008 prices) worth of supplies were shipped: $31.4 billion to Britain, $11.3 billion to the Soviet Union, $3.2 billion to France and $1.6 billion to China. Reverse Lend Lease comprised services (like rent on air bases) that went to the U.S. totaled $7.8 billion, of which $6.8 billion came from the British and the Commonwealth. The terms of the agreement provided that the material was to be used until time for their return or destruction. (Supplies after the termination date were sold to Britain at a discount, for £1.075 billion, using long-term loans from the U.S.) Canada operated a similar program that sent $4.7 billion in supplies to Britain and Soviet Union.
This program was a decisive step away from American non-interventionism since the end of World War I and towards international involvement. The Americans demanded that this rent be settled, and it took until 2006 for the UK government to settle its debt to the USA

Another interesting tidbit is the Japanese war in China that began in 1931 and escalated significantly in 1937,but was never 'declared'. If Japan had declared war then they wouldn't have been able to obtain military hardware, munitions and fuel from the US. Britain, the US and other Western nations supported the Japanese against the perceived threat of communism which was threatening to take over China. At the same time they were also providing modest aid to Chiang Kai-sheck's nationalist government. Talk about an each-way bet. Australia supplied iron to Japan and as a result our then Prime Minister, Robert Menzies, was nick-named 'Pig Iron Bob'. Talk about it all coming back to bite us on the bum! Pearl Harbour and the bombing of Darwin ... the Japanese were just returning unused ordinance!

 

[Tez3]

On the subject of the Royal Family again, it's been claimed that the Duke of Kent was a bi-sexual Nazi spy but the same person who claimed this also claimed the same about Errol Flynn! I guess that lies are always more 'interesting' than the truth.

Bob why do you hate the French? what have they done to you?

 

[Bob Hubbard]

On the subject of the Royal Family again, it's been claimed that the Duke of Kent was a bi-sexual Nazi spy but the same person who claimed this also claimed the same about Errol Flynn! I guess that lies are always more 'interesting' than the truth.

Bob why do you hate the French? what have they done to you?

Why? Personal run ins with a couple of French Citizens, and French Canadians whose noses were so far up in the air I could see the inside of their skulls. Arrogance is everywhere, but the French I've dealt with have refined it to an art form. Stories of treatment from US GI's who told the same story of how they were cheered when they pushed the Germans back, they given a 1 finger salute as they left. Too cowardly to fight for their own country, they let us do the hard work for them then showed their ingratitude after. An easy dozen other tales.

 

[Bruno@MT]

Why? Personal run ins with a couple of French Citizens, and French Canadians whose noses were so far up in the air I could see the inside of their skulls. Arrogance is everywhere, but the French I've dealt with have refined it to an art form. Stories of treatment from US GI's who told the same story of how they were cheered when they pushed the Germans back, they given a 1 finger salute as they left. Too cowardly to fight for their own country, they let us do the hard work for them then showed their ingratitude after. An easy dozen other tales.

Wartime propaganda is a powerful thing innit?

But even if that were true (it's not), consider it repayment for saving the Americans when those traitors wanted to separate from the English crown.
without French support, that would have been snuffed out.

 

[Empty Hands]

It is interesting that although Britain and the US declared war on Japan, the US never declared war on Germany.

Nope.

"Whereas the Government of Germany has formally declared war against the Government and the people of the United States of America:
Therefore be it
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the state of war between the United States and the Government of Germany which has thus been thrust upon the United States is hereby formally declared; and the President is hereby authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States and the resources of the Government to carry on war against the Government of Germany; and, to bring the conflict to a successful termination, all of the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States."
Approved, December 11, 1941, 3:05 p.m., E. S. T.