Current Affairs Auschwitz-Birkenau.......

[davek]

Spare us the bleating, please. Few parties have ever been as disastrously wrong as the Tories were between 1935 and 1940 and even fewer managed to survive afterwards.

Let’s not forget this was a party that looked at Chamberlain after Munich, after Poland, after Royal Oak, after Norway and after three days of the most savage kicking a House of Commons will ever hand out to a PM and voted by a majority of 80 that they had confidence in him. If a small number of Tories hadn’t gone against their party and worked with “socialists” - and many of them were made to pay for it - the world would be a very different place.

Sppt on that, mate.

That's why my blood boils when I see certain people trying to demonise the left. If the left hadn't organised against British fascism and confronted it on the streets back in the 30s, this country would for sure have been under the jackboot.

 

[tsubaki]

No bleating from my side.

This is a memorial thread for the holocaust that Dave was trying to gain political points from. As are you now.

Threads like this and the Lyra McKee one are for people to show empathy and respect. If you aren't able or don't want to do either, just stay out of it.

Of course you are bleating, you’re doing it in the post above by pretending that people are trying to make political points. If you’d bothered to read the whole of the thread you’d see my points earlier, all I was doing on this bit of it was to say that daves criticism of the pre-war Tory party has a lot to back it up.

Also it’s a bit mad that you seem to think they can’t be criticised on a thread about the Holocaust when that horror was a direct consequence of the failure to challenge the Hitler regime when it would have been possible to do it. They were in government at the time, with one of the biggest majorities on record, and it isn’t as if the Nazis didn’t openly advertise what they were doing and wanted to do to the Jews of Germany, Austria and the world. I not saying they were to blame for the Holocaust, but it’s really difficult to argue they weren’t at fault for not stopping him.

 

[Barry Rathbone]

Remarkable how this episode happened in relatively modern times and in one of the great European countries.

You can't help wondering how ordinary people could be so subverted by propaganda and captured by an ideology to become a part of such heinous evil. It also begs the question of whether people of today might contain the same latent potential for bullying, hatred and intolerance ... then you look at social media and it's not even a question

 

[Harryflashman]

Remarkable how this episode happened in relatively modern times and in one of the great European countries.

You can't help wondering how ordinary people could be so subverted by propaganda and captured by an ideology to become a part of such heinous evil. It also begs the question of whether people of today might contain the same latent potential for bullying, hatred and intolerance ... then you look at social media and it's not even a question

honestly in 2020 you find it remarkable? I think every year we’re getting closer to that kind of world , less the Jews but lately more the Muslims . When you demonise a section of society, you’re on you’re way

 

[Barry Rathbone]

honestly in 2020 you find it remarkable? I think every year we’re getting closer to that kind of world , less the Jews but lately more the Muslims . When you demonise a section of society, you’re on you’re way

The more history I read and the more news I watch the conclusion is inescapable - there is no such thing as modern people - we're just the same old, same old people

 

[PhilM]

Yes, but you have to also address the fact that there were many in the British Establishment who saw Hitler as someone who could do their dirty work for them in the sense that he had shown a strong hand against the organised working class movements in Germany and presented a threat to Soviet Russia. They were also petrified of a strong working class and the ideolgy of communism becoming embedded in Britain. And it wasn't only on that level, Hitler had his admirers in the British ruling elite. His racial policies were in synch with their own views on social order (many of them were influenced by scientific racism and eugenics).

THAT was a telling factor in appeasement too.

I'm not going to say that some of what you're saying is not true because it is, however I would argue that you are quite overtly overstating it for whatever reason.

The four primary reasons for appeasement were:

• A desire to prevent war because of memories of the slaughter in 1914-1918,
• Early on, a fairly large consensus within the population that Versailles had been too extensive in its punishment and this was a natural correction,
• Financially, an Empire that was already overstretched and simply couldn't in the short-term afford to counter German by a military rearmament programme,
• Significant deficiencies in military strategy: Belgian neutrality in 1937 et al.

Like I said earlier, with hindsight it is quite easy to place the blame on certain people, classes or parties even though in reality it is far from that simple or linear.

The Tory party cannot be exempt from blame, far from it, but in reality some of the arguments here come across as subjective and as political point scoring.

 

[davek]

I'm not going to say that some of what you're saying is not true because it is, however I would argue that you are quite overtly overstating it for whatever reason.

The four primary reasons for appeasement were:

• A desire to prevent war because of memories of the slaughter in 1914-1918,
• Early on, a fairly large consensus within the population that Versailles had been too extensive in its punishment and this was a natural correction,
• Financially, an Empire that was already overstretched and simply couldn't in the short-term afford to counter German by a military rearmament programme,
• Significant deficiencies in military strategy: Belgian neutrality in 1937 et al.

Like I said earlier, with hindsight it is quite easy to place the blame on certain people, classes or parties even though in reality it is far from that simple or linear.

The Tory party cannot be exempt from blame, far from it, but in reality some of the arguments here come across as subjective and as political point scoring.

You're wandering off into a macro analysis of the Treaty of Versailles, the balance of power in Europe and imperial considerations. My point is domestic. The Tories saw the left and communism in particular as a greater threat to the class that they by and large represented than Nazi Germany did. They quite admired the Nazi handling of 'the red' problem. They weren't minded to confront the fascists in Britain. The left cleared the menace of fascism out of the country. Smashing their rallies and marches on the streets.

 

[PhilM]

You're wandering off into a macro analysis of the Treaty of Versailles, the balance of power in Europe and imperial considerations. My point is domestic.

Not I'm not and as is mine. A fair percentage of the general public felt that Treaty of Versailles was unfair, which in turn supported the appeasement movement.*

You're suggesting that appeasement was the result of a quasi-political and elite fondness of the Nazis, whereas most evidence says it's quite the opposite.

*see Catherine Ann Cline, Keynes amongst many other sources.

 

[Daz1878]

If you've never seen it, Alain Resnais' Night and Fog is an incredibly powerful film. It's only about half an hour long, but it'll stay with you for days afterwards:

 

[davek]

Not I'm not and as is mine. A fair percentage of the general public felt that Treaty of Versailles was unfair, which in turn supported the appeasement movement.*

You're suggesting that appeasement was the result of a quasi-political and elite fondness of the Nazis, whereas most evidence says it's quite the opposite.

*see Catherine Ann Cline, Keynes amongst many other sources.

The Treaty of Versailles was a matter of High politics and any sympathy Germany had on that score was well and truly exhausted way before the outbreak of war with the huge militarisation taking place there and their role in the Spanish Civil War. They were an existential threat to Britain way before 1939.

In that climate though we still had the ruling elite courting British fascists. Rothermere and the BUF given support in the Daily Heil, for example; sympathisers in the Royal Family etc etc.

Only the Labour Pary, Independent Labour Party, Communist Party and various anarchist groups took the threat domestically seriously enough to confront it and eliminate it.

 

[GwladysPhil]

The Treaty of Versailles was a matter of High politics and any sympathy Germany had on that score was well and truly exhausted way before the outbreak of war with the huge militarisation taking place there and their role in the Spanish Civil War. They were an existential threat to Britain way before 1939.

In that climate though we still had the ruling elite courting British fascists. Rothermere and the BUF given support in the Daily Heil, for example; sympathisers in the Royal Family etc etc.

Only the Labour Pary, Independent Labour Party, Communist Party and various anarchist groups took the threat domestically seriously enough to confront it and eliminate it.

Reckon communism would work now Dave?

 

[davek]

Reckon communism would work now Dave?

That's a pretty broad category.

We most definitely as a species need a plan, that is for sure. Look at what's happening to the climate. The so called free market will end human life on this planet in a matter of a hundred years or so. The market is short term and voracious; it doesn't care about the future beyond a handful of years. This issue will dicate politics from now on.

 

[GwladysPhil]

That's a pretty broad category.

We most definitely as a species need a plan, that is for sure. Look at what's happening to the climate. The so called free market will end human life on this planet in a matter of a hundred years or so. The market is short term and voracious; it doesn't care about the future beyond a handful of years. This issue will dicate politics from now on.

This is the Davek I like.

We're so stuck in a capitalist world that the greed of others is considered ok than allowing others to flourishing, very depressing.

 

[polish]

My grandmother was a survivor. He never spoke about it, apart from showing us her diary.

It really put things into perspective.

 

[tommytowne]

My grandmother was a survivor. He never spoke about it, apart from showing us her diary.

It really put things into perspective.

I did some work recently working with some Polish engineers, fine technically gifted and industrious each and every one of them. One of the guys told me about his maternal grandmother and her experience with the Germans first, then the Russians and finally the Czechs. All in the space of those five or six years. The horrors and behaviours of fellow human beings. I'm no scholar of history by any measure so I was truly surprised to hear from him that the worst atrocities against the Poles were administered by the Czechs.