Jagger69
Three lullabies in an ancient tongue
Some really good points MP but I think you are displaying a little poetic license by stating some of the things you did. Hitler definitely wanted war....basically for two major reasons: 1) To get revenge on the "November criminals" who betrayed Germany by acceding to the extreme nature of the Allied demands from the Treaty of Versailles and, 2) To manifest his desire to enable an expansion of German-controlled territory in order to accelerate procreation to fulfill their racial Aryan destiny of supremacy. You are correct that he saw the Soviet Union as the epitome of evil in the world prior to the war (Bolsheviks, Jews and untermenchen in the form of the Slavic ethnicities). He knew that Germany would not be able to conduct a 2-front war so, after the pretentious non-aggression pact with Russia that essentially gave Hitler a green-light to do as he wished with Poland, once Poland was vanquished, he was able to secure his northern flank with a quick and easy takeover of Denmark and Norway. He subsequently ran his incredibly effective blitzkrieg tactics to take out the low countries and France by June of 1940. Never comfortable with the strategy behind Operation Sea Lion (the proposed amphibious invasion of Great Britain), he became convinced by Goering (whom also was responsible for fooling Hitler into believing that the Luftwaffe alone could take out the B.E.F. and allied remnants of the French army on the beaches of Dunquerque) when General Guderian and the armored cavalry wing of the Wehrmacht were poised to do exactly that. He failed and 338,000 troops were allowed to escape to England. Later, he was again deceived into believing that the Luftwaffe could take out the British through a heavy bombing campaign. That too was unsuccessful. Regardless, convinced that the British were sufficiently contained on their island as to present no legitimate 2nd-front threat, he subsequently set his sights on the Soviet Union and expansion to the east. We all know how that ultimately turned out.
Russia was woefully unprepared for any type of warfare on the scale that was being waged by the Germans in the spring of 1941. Their war against Finland was anything but an easy task and plainly showed Russia's premature situation to pursue any imperialistic tendencies. That's a huge part of the reason that the Germans were able to roll through most of western Russia in short order. So, I think it is incorrect to take the attitude that Hitler did not want war and the Allies did. History clearly shows otherwise. The occupation of the Rhineland, the Austrian anschluss, the ridiculous and appeasing Munich Agreement that not only ceded the Sudetenland to Germany but also emboldened him to believe that he could march his troops into Czechoslovakia without fear of reprisal (which he promptly and brazenly did) all only serve to display how unprepared and unwilling England and France were for any type of armed conflict and how determined Hitler was to pursue his expansionist goals. This was proven very emphatically when Germany invaded Poland in September, 1939 and, although treaty-bound to come to its immediate assistance, basically France and England did nothing other than to ceremonially declare war while Hitler and Stalin combined to carve up Poland between them without any significant resistance.
Your comparisons between the situation back then and now regarding Russia and the NATO nations is very interesting and has some legitimacy but, alas, my wife is giving me the evil eye to get off the web and pay some attention to her so I hope to continue this discussion at some point in the near future. Good and pertinent discussion!
Russia was woefully unprepared for any type of warfare on the scale that was being waged by the Germans in the spring of 1941. Their war against Finland was anything but an easy task and plainly showed Russia's premature situation to pursue any imperialistic tendencies. That's a huge part of the reason that the Germans were able to roll through most of western Russia in short order. So, I think it is incorrect to take the attitude that Hitler did not want war and the Allies did. History clearly shows otherwise. The occupation of the Rhineland, the Austrian anschluss, the ridiculous and appeasing Munich Agreement that not only ceded the Sudetenland to Germany but also emboldened him to believe that he could march his troops into Czechoslovakia without fear of reprisal (which he promptly and brazenly did) all only serve to display how unprepared and unwilling England and France were for any type of armed conflict and how determined Hitler was to pursue his expansionist goals. This was proven very emphatically when Germany invaded Poland in September, 1939 and, although treaty-bound to come to its immediate assistance, basically France and England did nothing other than to ceremonially declare war while Hitler and Stalin combined to carve up Poland between them without any significant resistance.
Your comparisons between the situation back then and now regarding Russia and the NATO nations is very interesting and has some legitimacy but, alas, my wife is giving me the evil eye to get off the web and pay some attention to her so I hope to continue this discussion at some point in the near future. Good and pertinent discussion!
