With his family's military history, Peter Hitchens is as well-placed to tell us the truth behind WWII as anyone can get, and (while you may not always agree with him on other issues - see above) we do know he's trustworthy, so this is the world's long-awaited inside scoop on WWII and The Battle Of Britain:
The uncomfortable truth is that from the very beginning, it was Britain which sought a conflict with Germany, not Germany with Britain. Hitler’s real targets lay elsewhere, in Ukraine and Russia, and he was much less interested in us than we like to think.
Nor did we go to war, as many like to believe, to save or even help the endangered Jews of Europe,...Britain simply did not declare war in 1939 to save Europe’s Jews – indeed, our government was indifferent to their plight and blocked one of their main escape routes, to what was then British-ruled Palestine. We also did nothing to help Poland, for whose sake we supposedly declared war.
Forget, too, the ‘special relationship’ with the US: America was a jealous and resentful rival to whom we ceded our global status and naval supremacy. And Washington’s grudging backing came at a huge price – we were made to hand over the life savings of the Empire to stave off bankruptcy and surrender.
Even the threat of a German invasion was never a reality, more a convenient idea which suited the propaganda purposes of Hitler and Churchill. What began as a phoney war led in the end to a phoney victory, in which the real winners were Washington and Moscow, not us – and an unsatisfactory, uncomfortable and unhappy peace.
It led to a permanent decline in our status, and a much accelerated, violent and badly managed collapse of our Empire,...the sad truth is that this country deliberately sought a war in the vain hope of preserving a Great Power status our rulers knew in their hearts it had already lost. The resulting war turned us into a second-rate power.
...A whole page of horror in European history, from which we have much to learn, has been erased. And, as so often in these matters, those who raise these matters can expect to be falsely accused of minimising the crimes of the Nazis, as some in Germany have sought to do. But this is a stupid lie.
[Previous bold emphasis mine] Well now, that's refreshing - I mean depressing - I mean,...I don't know what I mean. It's going to take a while to process. Surely, I knew Hitler couldn't win the war, already, so the whole thing did stink of a charade, but, to think it was one orchestrated by Britain? That never occurred to me.
But why not? It is so bizarre how true information can right the world, as though we'd been living in the bad guys' lair, on the '60's television series, "Batman", but have finally escaped to level ground. That's what this kind of feels like.
On the other hand, next, he'll be telling us something even more silly - like the French and the Democrats started Vietnam. Damn those Hitchens Boys...
