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      Worm in the Apple German Traitors and Other Influences That Pushed the World Into War: The little-known story of the men who destroyed Adolf Hitler's Germany Friedrich Lenz 8. Ten leading personalities comment on the question of war guilt (Part 1) Even for reasons of space I must dispense with drawing on the voluminous documentary material available to bring complete proof that all the diplomatic back-and-forth up to September 3 was only theatrics intended to deceive the peoples about where the real guilt in the matter lay. I will restrict myself to a few concise observations: A. The British guarantee was allegedly intended exclusively for the protection of Poland. Yet not one single shot was fired for Poland.22 B. The official ie. publicly accessible wording of the Anglo-Polish Mutual Assistance Pact of August 25 speaks of protection from any European power. When Germany had overcome Poland and Russia visited war on the other half, Ambassador Harvey, speaking in the House of Commons on October 19, 1939, innocently asked whether this treaty did not also pertain to attacks by non-European powers, in other words, Russia. He was given the official reply, in writing, that Poland and England had expressly agreed in the course of their negotiations that this treaty applied only to a possible attack by Germany. C. To quote a significant statement by Bruno Brehm: "The true reasons for war are not generally revealed in the speeches made before war, but by the actions taken afterwards." Those interested in these actions are referred to the very interesting book by the American author Freda Utley, The High Cost of Vengeance.
"A closer look reveals the British Empire and the German mainland power to be twin pillars that could have supported an age of prosperity and cultural vigor, a lasting construct of order and peace.
"Is this bottom line worth all the sacrifices? They would have been justified only if Germany had really striven for world dominance. We have already ascertained that only madmen could have embraced this notion, and those men who began with nothing and achieved such grand results in all areas after a twenty years' struggle could not have been mad. But let us postulate the impossible for the moment, and assume that after consolidating her position in Europe, Germany would really have taken up such plans for world dominance and had turned on the West, ie. against France, against Britain, and against America. What would have been the sole correct response to such a threat? By no means would it have been to throw ourselves unarmed into the fray; it would have been to bide our time, to observe the developments, and to ensure a satisfactory arms status in the meantime. If the three great Western powers had united their mighty industrial resources for the production of those weapons that were decisive in those days, then it would have been impossible for Germany to overcome them even after exploiting all the raw materials available to her. Had they capitalized on their staggering industrial potentials in time, France, Britain and America would not have needed Russia's help to repulse any potential German threat and to fell the aggressor. "In such a situation, is it not incumbent upon political decision-makers with any sense of reality to strive for the best possible solution while preparing for the worst? Under the conditions of 1939 this would have meant, on the one hand, removing all factors that might have caused a German explosion while, however, also getting ready to fend off any such eventuality. The first step would have entailed the statesmen of the wealthy Western world powers granting Germany access to the raw materials and resources she needed so badly, either in the neighboring regions of the East or by allowing her a share in the surplus of raw materials available in those days in overseas territories. A free hand in the East would have been the better of the two solutions from both the German and the British standpoints, but this would have required a degree of sober reflection and determination that is too much to expect from the 'democratic' way of thinking. "However, if there had really been a determination and desire to clear up and defuse the situation, other means more suited to the thought-processes and feelings of the democracies could have been found. Germany would no doubt have agreed to any international settlement that had provided her economy with access to the extant world surplus, even if this had been in the form of barter or trade instead of direct access to the sources - provided, however, that this did not require Germany's submission to the yoke of foreign high finance. "Aside from the well-known trips of British diplomats in moments of grave danger, in crises that had occurred because the German people had been compressed into too small a living space, democratic statesmen made no serious attempts to eliminate the causes of the impending explosion. On the contrary, they turned a deaf ear to all the various disarmament plans proposed by Germany - proposals that are on historical record and cannot be denied. Germany had serious grievances about her restriction to too small a space without sufficient resources. Common sense and fairness required that an attempt, at least, be made to remove these grounds for complaint. Even if there had been suspicions that Germany was not in fact truly concerned about the welfare of her people, but motivated, rather, by plans for world conquest, no efforts towards peace should have been omitted by peaceful governments. At the same time, of course, the time gained in this way would have had to be used to consolidate the immense industrial potentials, so that the arms status of the three Western powers could have nipped in the bud any bellicose German intentions, had they in fact existed. If a war had still broken out, then thanks to the superior arms status of the Western allies it would not have lasted nearly as long and cost only a fraction of the losses in life and cultural values that were in fact claimed by the Second World War, that devastating result of the lengthy and sluggish muddle that the democrats called 'politics' and 'preparations'. "Today, no less than in those days, this author is convinced that honest efforts at mitigation and settlement would have been successful, and that free and natural agreements between Great Britain and Germany would have been of benefit to Europe and the world."
"That is why we were amazed indeed when Chamberlain informed us on March 31 of our unconditional and one-sided promissory guarantee to Poland. I was then of the opinion, and continue to feel to this day, that in the absence of a binding alliance with Russia this was an act of sheer madness, for in doing so we had made a far-reaching promise which, it was clear beforehand, we could not keep. Lloyd George immediately asked whether the General Staff had consented to our committing ourselves to the defense of a nation entirely inaccessible to us. He received no reply. "Poland succumbed to the Blitzkrieg in only three weeks. We did not lift a finger or start an airplane in her assistance. How should we have? There was not even a tangible sense of the urgency of the matter."
"Prior to the outbreak of war there was not yet any anti-Hitler crusader sentiment in Britain, in fact there was hardly even any fear of an impending war. The public did not see that the tense European situation might be about to erupt. Even those who disapproved of the invasion of Czechoslovakia could not pretend that this posed a danger to the freedom of Britain or any other great power. In the summer of 1939 there was considerably less suspense than there had been the year before. The people even seemed to have forgotten that it was not Hitler but Mr. Chamberlain who had exposed them and the whole war to catastrophe through some of the most foolish, presumptuous and provocative words ever uttered by a servant of the state. These words were the immediate cause of the Second World War. Right after the march into Prague, Chamberlain declared that Britain would come to Poland's aid with all the means at her disposal, should Germany attack. Britain would shield Poland's intactness and independence from any act of aggression... The speech in which Chamberlain offered this guarantee was the most disastrous speech ever given by a Prime Minister. Whether he spoke for the Cabinet or not... he did not consider asking the people, who would have to reap the bitter fruits of his thoughtlessness and foolish words - and did indeed reap them. "The British government must have been clear on the fact that it could never fulfil its guarantee... The Poles let themselves be deluded, and acted henceforth in a confident and provoking manner towards Germany... The blank check given to Poland as much as said: 'We don't care whether you are in the right or in the wrong: either way, as soon as Germany attacks you, we will declare war on her in your defense!' And foolish people presume to call this a great and noble gesture! It was an unprincipled, unsupportable promise motivated solely by hatred for Hitler.... Let the reader ask himself what Britain's attitude would have been, had another power dictated her actions with respect to Ireland or Portugal or Canada or India! - We must bear in mind that the artificial construct of Poland - a dictatorship created in 1919 - was set up with the express purpose of complementing the despicable severance of Danzig to effectively constrict Germany. - Just ask yourselves what city, 94% of whose inhabitants are British, would be content to remain under foreign rule, and what Britain would have felt if she had been separated from Scotland by a Corridor. "Thoughtless people in Britain and elsewhere grew tired of watching Hitler persistently asserting one German claim after another. They became irritated and arrived at the simple conclusion that all these claims must be parts of a cleverly thought-out plan of aggression. But a justified claim is not rendered false and selfish merely by the fact that it happens to be the third or fourth claim that someone has to advance. It is downright unfair of people who were lucky enough not to have to suffer injustices and not to need to make claims for redress, to throw Germany's predicament up in Hitler's face as an accusation. When the question of Danzig and the Corridor was raised, they lost patience and all sense of justice. They decided without any more ado that these further claims were nothing other than 'aggression' and - in a strange sort of retrospect - that Hitler's earlier demands must therefore also have been outright 'aggression' and territorial theft. In those days it was commonly claimed that we had no quarrel with Germany about her domestic political structure; domestic structure was exclusively the business of each respective state. But if one persisted in asking what injustice of foreign-political nature Germany had done us or another country, the accusers quickly sidestepped to the topics of totalitarianism and Jewish policies, and declared these to be sufficient grounds for war. "Neither our belief in international relations to which we declare our support, nor general reasons, can account for our entry into the Second World War. Only the grave danger into which the British government's stubborn resolve to crush the Third Reich had finally precipitated the country was able at long last to rouse the nation's willingness for war and to silence all other considerations."
"Thus it came about that by the time Hitler gained power, the British people were so completely duped that had a British Government proposed rearmament, it would have been turned out of office. So intense was this pacific propaganda that, when the crash came in September, 1939, the Government feared to proclaim its true war aim - namely, that as German power politics, the German way of life, the German system of finance and the German method of trading were antagonistic to Britain, and if persisted in would lead to the establishment of a German hegemony over Europe, the self-preservation of Britain as a great power depended on staying their course. Therefore, since Britain's greatness had been built and sustained by the balance of power, its future security depended upon re-establishing that balance. Consequently, the Government's war aim was not to annihilate Germany, but to reduce her strength to balancing point. "Instead, when on September 3rd, 1939, war was declared, the aim was proclaimed to be a moral one. This placed the conflict onto the footing of a crusade, that is, of an ideological in contradistinction to a political war - a war to annihilate Hitler and Hitlerism, as St. George annihilated the Dragon. This is made crystal clear in the declarations of all parties in the House of Commons. Thus Mr. Chamberlain (Prime Minister) proclaimed: 'I trust I may live to see the day when Hitlerism has been destroyed and a liberated Europe has been re-established.' Next Mr. Greenwood (Labor): 'Lastly in this titanic struggle, unparalleled I believe in the history of the world, Nazism must be finally overthrown.' Then Sir A. Sinclair (Liberal): '...let the world know that the British people are inexorably determined, as the Prime Minister said, to end the Nazi dominion for ever and to build an order based on justice and freedom.' Lastly, Mr. Churchill (Union): 'This is not a question of fighting for Danzig or fighting for Poland. We are fighting to save a whole world from the pestilence of Nazi tyranny and in defense of all that is most sacred to man.' "Thus, instead of the minds of the people being directed towards the re-establishment of the balance of power, their reason was obliterated by a spirit of hatred for the 'evil thing', and to them, the war became a contest between Good and Evil.23 "This emotional aim, as we shall see, not only placed the war on a total footing, but eventually led to the very end that Britain had fought against for four hundred years - the establishment of a hegemony over Europe by a foreign power. "As fate would have it, that power was Russia."
"It also seemed to me that any such promises were the most certain way to produce war - because of the inevitable provocativeness of guaranteeing, at such a moment of tension, an area which we had hitherto treated as outside our sphere of interest; because of the manifest temptation which the guarantee offered, to a military-minded people like the Germans, to show how fatuously impractical our guarantee was; and because of its natural effect in stiffening the attitude of a people, the Poles, who had always shown themselves exceptionally intractable in negotiating a reasonable settlement of any issue.... "And yet, in the April 1939 parliamentary debate about the Polish Guarantee, the central idea of almost all leading speakers was to emphasize that they supported said Guarantee in the belief that it would be a means to keep the peace. From a historical perspective, this avowal of their own delusion was the best possible proof that they lacked those elements necessary for practical statesmanship and that they were unfit to determine the fate of a great nation. "The only prominent exception to this rule was Lloyd George, who alone pointed out the practical difficulties and the dangerous madness of offering such a commitment without first securing Russia's support. "Through an irony of history, this critical moment saw him for once in agreement with the view of the military authorities - indeed of everyone who had the slightest conception of the practical state of affairs. He was also the only statesman in agreement with the traditions of British statesmanship.... "If anyone tells me that in April 1939 we suddenly recognized the danger that the Nazi system posed for the whole civilized world, I can only smile sadly. What I observed and recorded for history during the months following Munich was a growing resentment of the humiliation we had suffered there, and an increasing fear of the danger to our own interests - a combination that continually received further stimulus, as if under the pressure of expanding gases, after the events of March 1939 had come to pass. "A comment frequently heard in the winter of 1939-40 was that one did not know what to fear more - Germany's 'protection' or Britain's 'support'."
"For the purposes of the Nuremberg Trials it sufficed to allege that the war and all its consequences were due to Hitler's aggression. But this explanation is too simple. It is also not in accordance with the facts, for Hitler wanted anything but a world war... "Britain's sudden turnabout in March 1939 made the war inevitable. It created a situation comparable to an overheated kettle in which the pressure had reached the danger point and whose safety valve was then suddenly stopped up. The blame lies with those who permitted the kettle to be heated further and who, in doing so, brought about the explosion."
"Today the men in Britain's leadership are realizing more and more what a mistake it was to attack Germany under American and Jewish pressure. In their casual sports-based jargon, many of them now admit: 'We bet on the wrong horse.' They now feel that if Britain could not resist waging a war, then she should have done so on the German rather than on the Soviet side. Even Churchill expressed this realization in terms he deemed fitting: 'We slaughtered the wrong pig.' "In 1939, however, this was not yet common knowledge among the powers-that-be; at that time, they let themselves drift unscrupulously before the wind of vociferous Jewish hatred and 'pacifist' war-mongering. The few that had retained a grasp on their common sense, such as Neville Chamberlain, Lord Londonderry, and Lord Runciman, gave in when the propaganda following the occupation of Prague reached fever pitch; influenced by the German Resistance, they agreed to the fateful and, for Poland, utterly ineffective promissory guarantee that made war inevitable. "...Under the leadership of Sir Oswald Mosley, those sectors of the British population that had retained their common sense and realized that a war would lead not only to the destruction of Germany, but also to the surrender of all of Europe to the Soviet Union, resolutely opposed the efforts at war-mongering. Enormous public assemblies and proclamations enthusiastically received the passionate appeals of the leaders of the British Union. It is a fact that two months before the outbreak of war Mosley conducted the largest political mass rally in British history. The extent of this massive peace rally is shown by the fact that it took several special trains to transport the workers from the strongholds of the Union movement in East London to the rally. More than 30,000 people supported his call for peace with Germany with tumultuous enthusiasm and waves of thunderous applause, and not one voice was raised in dissent. The name Churchill, the chief war-monger, was greeted with outraged booing and hissing, so that his son Randolph left the hall trembling with rage.
"When the war-mongers attained their goal a few weeks later, despite these desperate efforts to
preserve peace and Europe's safety, Mosley showed his mettle; even now he fought courageously
against the madness whose fires were being stoked with all the means that propaganda offered.
He
opposed the power of Churchill and his fellow war-mongers openly and with the full and
unwavering force
of his personality - not like those men of the 20th of July in Germany, who burrowed and rooted
about in secret and did not dare come out into the light until Hitler's downfall seemed assured."
22At least the guarantee given to Poland triggered a "declaration of war", but as early as November 1939, when Rumania saw Russia preparing to grab for Bessarabia, Rumania found that England implored her for Heaven's sake not to insist on British action to back up that Guarantee. In June 1940, when Russia availed herself of England's weakness and swallowed Bessarabia and northern Bukovina in defiance of the guarantee, Rumania was left helpless. ...back...
23This attitude has survived the decades and is still
present today. Surely no-one can be unaware of the countless movies and television shows, for
example, where even today "the evil Nazis" are ultimately beaten by "the good Americans" (or
British, etc.)! [-trans.] ...back...   
Worm in the Apple German Traitors and Other Influences That Pushed the World Into War: The little-known story of the men who destroyed Adolf Hitler's Germany |
"Exactly the opposite view prevailed, and resulted in that clash whose consequences can now be
stated with almost mathematical exactitude: a third of Europe is lost to Russia, and that mighty
Eastern power, confident of its ultimate victory, looms over the exhausted remainder of the
Western world whose sole protection now lies in the atomic bomb under American control.
Furthermore, 74% of the population and 16% of the areal extent of the British Empire have been
lost due to the war or its aftereffects; what is left, stumbles along on crutches of foreign aid.
"It is immoral to make promises that one cannot expect in
practice to fulfil - in the sense that the recipient expects. On that ground, in 1939 I questioned
the
underlying morality of the Polish Guarantee, as well as its practicality. If the Poles had realized
the
military inability of Britain and France to save them from defeat, and of what such defeat would
mean to them individually and collectively, it is unlikely that they would have shown such
stubborn opposition to Germany's originally
modest demands - for Danzig and a passage through the Corridor. Since it was obvious to me
that
they were bound to lose these points, and much more in the event of a conflict, it seemed to me
wrong on our part to make promises that were bound to encourage false hopes.