Subtly downplayng the Jewish “victim” status. Reminds me of Catch-22.
“Because they’re trying to kill me!”
“They’re trying to kill all of us, not just you.”
“What difference does that make?”
He’s wrong, too. Ocean City, Maryland had a population, at the last census, had a population of about 7000. In the 1923 census, Danzig had a population of about 367,000.
Will the world never cease its unrelenting slander of Adolph Hitler???
Well, that was interesting.
I typically don’t mind contrarian viewpoints. Sometimes there’s a lot to be gained from looking at things differently.
I’ve read Mein Kampf and it’s not unreasonable. Those skinhead types will usually start with the historical context of the German people suffering under war reparations and corrupt government, have you read Mein Kampf, and then make the argument that Hitler wasn’t really such a bad guy, just cast that way, especially through the distorting lens of history as written by the victors. But, if you look at what Hitler wrote and examine his motivations you’ll see that things are a bit different.
Note: I do not endorse that argument. I merely note that it has been made, and can be made persuasively. Intelligent people can buy into it.
Similarly one can start with the premise that Hitler liked his cat and was nice to it, therefore he wasn’t all bad. And such.
Usually, it’s only after that kind of a preface that you get the “Hitler didn’t really want war” argument.
In this case though, Buchanan dispenses with the prelude and moves right into the nuttery. This is not a new argument. It is easily dispensed with.
Buchanan asks:
But if Hitler was out to conquer the world — Britain, Africa, the Middle East, the United States, Canada, South America, India, Asia, Australia — why did he spend three years building that hugely expensive Siegfried Line to protect Germany from France? Why did he start the war with no surface fleet, no troop transports and only 29 oceangoing submarines? How do you conquer the world with a navy that can’t get out of the Baltic Sea?
If Hitler wanted the world, why did he not build strategic bombers, instead of two-engine Dorniers and Heinkels that could not even reach Britain from Germany?
Why did he let the British army go at Dunkirk?
Why did he offer the British peace, twice, after Poland fell, and again after France fell?
Why, when Paris fell, did Hitler not demand the French fleet, as the Allies demanded and got the Kaiser’s fleet? Why did he not demand bases in French-controlled Syria to attack Suez? Why did he beg Benito Mussolini not to attack Greece?"
The short answer to all these questions is that Hitler was quite confident that he could control the pace and escalation of the war, that he would have time to consolidate and prepare before moving onto the next phase of aggression.
Nor was Hitler wrong. At first. The tactic became transparent though.
Pat left the reservation a long time ago, IMO.
OK, but then why not mention the 12,000,000 non-Christian non-Jews? If his goal is to downplay Jewish suffering, he could rattle off three or four religious groups who also suffered. But it’s like he doesn’t grasp that there are other religions out there.
Very well said, Scylla. This piece of crap is an affront to every person who fought or supported our troops during World War II and their descendants, to every Jew, Roma, gay person, etc. However, as you point out, that doesn’t necessarily make him wrong. Disproof of his contention, without over-the-top outrage, will do a lot more to debunk his stupidity. Fortunately, that’s quite easy to do.
They’re irrelevant. Christians matter. Jews, well, they’re potential Christians, if they’d only see the light, and anyway they’ve already grabbed the spotlight on Hitler victims, so they can have some grudging recognition. But the rest of 'em? Subhumans, the lot of 'em, don’t matter to a true Christian.
You missed that he qualified the size of Ocean City in Summer, when it would be much larger–perhaps not the size of 1923 Danzig, but allowable for this type of article.
I doubt Buchanan is stupid, but he’s certainly written a stupid article. If his premise hinges on Hitler wanting to end the war in 1940, then how does he reconcile Germany invading France in May of 1940?
Well, I guess Hitler realized the best defense was a good offense. Even if we generously assume that Hitler only wanted Germany to expand eastward, why does Buchanan gloss over the invasion of France, mentioning only German peace initiative “after France fell”, as though France collapsed on its own. Germany couldn’t have been responsible, after all:
Oh, yeah, wouldn’t want war with France. Better to just get it over with quickly and then head back to choir practice.
Man, the conservatives always keep the good drugs for themselves!
Originally opined by Pat Buchanan:
I may be wrong, but Hitler doesn’t really seem like the begging type to me.
Seriously, he’s been doing this since the 70’s. He’s brought it up in at least 3 or 4 of his books.
Damn, I guess Pat’s a racist.
In all fairness, Pat does have a point there. Have you ever been to OC?
It’s one of the few places that could really benefit from a blitzkrieg.
Pat Buchanan ran for president in 2000 as a Reform Party candidate. He ran for president in 1996 and 1992 as a Republican. In 1992 he challenged Bush in the primaries and won 38 percent of the vote in New Hampshire. During his run in 1996 he won New Hampshire, and came close to winning Iowa.
By contrast, Ralph Nader has never seriously contended in Democratic primaries. The closest he came was when he was a write-in candidate in 1992. When he stood in both the Republican and Democratic primaries.
Pat Buchanan gave the keynote address at the Republican National convention. Ralph Nader tried to blackmail John Kerry into adopting his campaign planks. Truly, the two men are like two sides of the same coin.
I’m not sure I would go so far as to say “very well said,” as it’s not entirely clear whether Scylla thinks Mein Kampf is reasonable or not.
You know who else took Hitler’s overtures of peace at face value and assumed that he really didn’t want war?
Stalin.
Pat Buchanan is just like Josef Stalin.
Because he speaks for millions.
I’m not at all sure Uncle Pat even had a point, other than a historical curiosity. I have often noticed him casting a gimlet eye with a realpolitik perpsective. (One need not be an utter cynic to heed their opinions, such can be very useful.) I’ve heard any number of his analyses of electoral poltiics that I thought shrewd and insightful, and cold bloodedly non-partisan. These are, for the most part, sane and cogent.
Its only when he speaks to a purpose that I think he’s batshit. When he says what he thinks, I listen, when he says what he believes, I shake my head slowly.
Anyway, I think maybe this is more like him making an historical comment rather than any sort of “defense”. I also think he’s the kind of guy who would delight to prove those college eggheads wrong with bare-knuckle, populist common sense. Those liberal professors, those nattering nabobs of negativism, those pusillanimous douchebags of extravagant sesquipedalianism…
I don’t think he was trying to prove anything much about Hitler, he was trying to prove that Pat Buchanan is smart. It ain’t just book smarts, you know.
His point is that isolationism is the best thing for America – even in such an extreme situation as during Hitler’s regime, thus illustrating that it is even more so now. He has always been consistent in opposing any kind of American military adventurism abroad – even WRT Commie-fighting in the Cold War, AFAIK. It is almost certainly not coincidence that in present circumstances isolationism equates to not being on the same side as Israel; but that does not necessarily detract from his point, such as it is.
Indeed, he did not beg Mussolini, Hitler was furious that Mussolini had invaded with no warning to him.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=6384
The only good thing about this was that Hitler had to postpone the invasion of the Soviet Union to finish Greece (and Yugoslavia) first. That delay of a few months was critical because by the time the Germans reached the Moscow city limits in 1941 “General winter” had come to help the Russians. The German army was not ready to fight in extreme cold conditions.