# To what extent do we personally blame Hitler for World War II? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 22, 2007, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-we-personally-blame-hitler-for-world-war-ii/393271 "2007-02-22T20:33:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![gazpacho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6f9a4e/32.png) [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-we-personally-blame-hitler-for-world-war-ii/393271/21 "2007-02-23T16:40:53Z")
[QUOTE=Sage Rat] I graduated from a Japanese college. So while I am admittedly taking my (British) teacher’s word for it, I have to imagine that as a scholar of Japanese political history he knew from whence he spoke. [/QUOTE] The Japanese have a long history of taking a really different view of their involvement in WW2 and goings on in China that the rest of the world. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-we-personally-blame-hitler-for-world-war-ii/393271/22 "2007-02-23T17:11:03Z")
[QUOTE=gazpacho] The Japanese have a long history of taking a really different view of their involvement in WW2 and goings on in China that the rest of the world. [/QUOTE] Which is why I noted that he was British. [Roger Buckley](http://www.amazon.com/United-States-Asia-Pacific-Since-1945/dp/0521809649/sr=1-9/qid=1172250522/ref=sr_1_9/105-1146369-6994015?ie=UTF8&s=books) ---
**Author:** ![FRDE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e68b1a/32.png) [@FRDE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FRDE)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2007, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-we-personally-blame-hitler-for-world-war-ii/393271/23 "2007-02-24T12:38:48Z")
[QUOTE=Sage Rat] I graduated from a Japanese college. So while I am admittedly taking my (British) teacher’s word for it, I have to imagine that as a scholar of Japanese political history he knew from whence he spoke. [/QUOTE] If Roger Buckley told you that the British had any form of control over China, then he was or is a seriously misguided historian. While the British did many things in China, that with 2007 values I consider reprehensible, they were strictly confined to Cantons - and a funny bit of waste land called Hong Kong. The thing is, that what people nowadays call ‘Imperialism’ was just one of those things that people used to do. If you encountered a primitive place that nobody else had nabbed, then you either established a rudimentary government or, if it was empty, you colonized it. In some ways it was a bit more civilized than raiding your neighbour, killing all males you could find, ditto for unattractive females, burning anything you could and then giving them a bit of time to recover before repeating the process. So the Japanese took over Taiwan, Korea and Manchuria, no big deal, the only thing I would say is that they were a bit late in the game, but cottoned on and adapted pretty fast. In fact, both the Japanese and Chinese showed a remarkable talent at keeping the Kwai from taking them over, although to be fair, the Kwai exploited internal divisions and did not want anything other than easy pickin’s. China and Japan were tough nuts. I would be interested to hear more of what you were told, not necessarily by Buckley - but in general. I once spent a term as a kid in Germany and was fascinated to hear that the German reason for WWI was … Africa. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2007, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-we-personally-blame-hitler-for-world-war-ii/393271/24 "2007-02-24T17:42:09Z")
[QUOTE=FRDE] If Roger Buckley told you that the British had any form of control over China, then he was or is a seriously misguided historian. [/quote] No he told me that the US was giving China money and arms previous to WWII, which is what I thought you were objecting to. > [@](#): > > The thing is, that what people nowadays call ‘Imperialism’ was just one of those things that people used to do. If you encountered a primitive place that nobody else had nabbed, then you either established a rudimentary government or, if it was empty, you colonized it. > > […] > > So the Japanese took over Taiwan, Korea and Manchuria, no big deal, the only thing I would say is that they were a bit late in the game, but cottoned on and adapted pretty fast. Indeed, this is what he taught (and is what I said, that I can tell–though in more detail.) I’m not sure which part of what I wrote you disagree with? ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2007, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-we-personally-blame-hitler-for-world-war-ii/393271/25 "2007-02-24T18:55:48Z")
> [@](#): > > 1933: Herr Hitler becomes Chancellor. (How well known outside of Germany is Hitler prior to this?) Pretty well known, enough for everyone, esp. outside Europe to think “Not this shit again.” It must have been interesting to see the juxtaposition of, that same year, Franklin Roosevelt and his handling of the banking crisis, bread lines, massive unemployment that made up the 1930’s depression. Here’s a quote from Sept 29, 1930 by Lowell Thomas, a popular radio announcer of the time from his book “History as you heard it.” - “Adolf Hitler, the German Fascist chief, is snorting fire. There are now two Mussolinis in the world, which seem to promise a rousing time. Adolf has written a book called the German Fascist Bible. In it this belligerent gentleman states that a cardinal policy of his now powerful German party is the conquest of Russia. That’s a tall assignment, Adolf. You just ask Napoleon.”\* ---
**Author:** ![Merkwurdigliebe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/74df32/32.png) [@Merkwurdigliebe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merkwurdigliebe)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2007, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-we-personally-blame-hitler-for-world-war-ii/393271/26 "2007-02-24T20:54:05Z")
Also it’s important to realize that one must have a depression-era mindset when thinking about this. Sure these changes to fascism were clearly part of the road to war, but you have to remember that this was a time of huge change regardless. The US saw a huge growth of the federal government. There also wasn’t the mindset that we have to day that our current system is the best of bad choices. Hitler is very easy to blame, I suppose. What if he had gotten into art school? I think we should blame those responsible for denying his application! But in all seriousness I don’t know if there would be a war regardless as stated above. Sure Germany wasn’t happy about its place, but it also could have been possible that as they started to come out of the depression that things got better. Perhaps the stipulations of the Versailles treaty could be lifted after some time (the financial ones, that is). It’s very hard to say what would have happened, considering we have no real example of the way things could have gone. WWII affected the world so much, I think it’s hard to say how we could have gotten from then to now. Obviously to keep the peace there would need to be economic expansion rivaling that which occurred after the war. If the war never happened, I suppose it’s possible that the economies would be much more backwards than they are today. But without Versailles creating problems, then I can’t see another war. This is mainly because WWI was still very fresh on everyone’s minds. You could blame a lot of people for implementing, and not lifting Versailles later on. It was quite a stupid move after everyone began to get wind of what Germany was up to. As for the war itself, Hitler pretty much started it as a result of perceived injustices that could have been prevented. I suppose, however, that we are better off now, with WWII having taken place. ---
**Author:** ![FRDE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e68b1a/32.png) [@FRDE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FRDE)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2007, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-we-personally-blame-hitler-for-world-war-ii/393271/27 "2007-02-25T08:35:12Z")
@SageRat It was this that I was objecting to: > [@](#): > > (in truth it was more to establish themselves in the position formerly held by Britain in regards to China.) My understanding is that Britain never had much of a position with regards to China, apart from pushing drugs, and stealing roses and tea. I got the impression that RB said the USA was trying to take over something Britain had in China - while Britain only really had Hong Kong and IIRC a sort of trading estate in Shanghai. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2007, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-we-personally-blame-hitler-for-world-war-ii/393271/28 "2007-02-25T09:06:18Z")
[QUOTE=FRDE] My understanding is that Britain never had much of a position with regards to China, apart from pushing drugs, and stealing roses and tea. [/quote] Well it wouldn’t really be called the Boxer **Rebellion** , unless there was some large dictatorial force to rebel against. > [@](#): > > I got the impression that RB said the USA was trying to take over something Britain had in China - while Britain only really had Hong Kong and IIRC a sort of trading estate in Shanghai. I was talking about what Japan was trying to accomplish in that sentence, not the USA. Japan wanted to take over the position that Britain had held in China. That is, they wanted to be the secret puppet masters. > [@Wikipedia](#): > > In addition, Japan increasingly utilized the internal conflicts among the Chinese factions to reduce their strength one by one. This was precipitated by the fact that even some years after the Northern Expedition, the political power of the Nationalist government only extended around the Yangtze River Delta region, and other regions of China were essentially held in the hands of regional powers. Thus, Japan often bought off or created special links with these regional powers to undermine the efforts of the central Nationalist government in bringing greater unity to China. To do this, Japan sought various Chinese traitors for cooperation and helped these men lead some “autonomous” governments that were friendly to Japan. This policy was called the Specialization of North China (Chinese: 華北特殊化; pinyin: húaběitèshūhùa), or more commonly known as the North China Autonomous Movement. The northern provinces affected by this policy were Chahar, Suiyuan, Hebei, Shanxi, and Shandong. > > […] > > The motives of Japan are clear: to create prosperity for Japan and obtain resource from China for that purpose. The Japanese did not intend to govern China directly, rather to create puppet governments that followed Japanese interests. To support these goals, Japan must control sizeable natural resources, such as those in Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philipines, which were at the time controlled by Britain, the Netherlands, and the USA, respectively. Britain may not have ever legally owned much of China (while as Japan did), but overall the goal was the same. Britain learned after India that wholely operating a country is more expensive than it is worth, so when they moved into China, they used political maneuvering (and some military intimidation in strategic ways–like owning Hong Kong) as the method to keep money flowing their way. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-we-personally-blame-hitler-for-world-war-ii/393271.md?page=1)