Hitler’s New Fans?

Originally published at Reckonin.com.

It is natural and good that we revise our interpretations of past history now and then in the light of new evidence and the emergence of new perspectives on human affairs. But there seems to be going on at the moment a revisionism about World War II that is somewhat distorted in judging good and evil.

This new perspective is endemic in what is called the alternative right and is appearing even in more mainstream sources.  This view suggests that the Allies were mistaken and corrupt in destroying Nazi Germany and thereby inflicted a grave damage on Western civilization that is responsible for our present troubles.

I was shocked and disturbed when this view emerged in response to a little something I wrote on what claimed to be a Southern site.  I was attacked by numerous persons and ridiculed as a fool who did not understand history in my sympathy for Britain over Nazis.  I have been  defending the South for half a century.  I thought I deserved a little respect on a “Southern” site. These were people claiming to be Southern.  They are people afraid to use their real names.  They differ in content but are similar in character to the horde of shallow leftist pseudo-intellectuals destroying civilised understanding by their distortions of history.

There are some elements in the Yankee national character that hint of fascism, but it is impossible to imagine anything more alien to the Southern tradition than goose-stepping Garman aggressors.

It is true that World War II turned out badly.  It weakened the British, French, and Dutch empires, allowing Communism and chaos across Asia, and it gave much of Europe to the Soviet Union.  But what happened later does not invalidate war against the Nazis. History often plays tricks like this.

According to our new revisionists, Hitler was a nice idealist who did not want to make war on Britain (as long as they agreed with him) and was only trying to save Europe from Communism.  Britain declared war on him anyway.  We are given pictures of a fat, corrupt, Jewish-controlled Churchill as responsible for starting World War II.

This is to misunderstand the situation of 1939 entirely.  It had long been a standing principle that no one power should be allowed to dominate Europe.  Hitler had already conquered and occupied much territory.  The invasion of Poland against his own promise indicated a lasting threat.  It is true that Britain and France could not help Poland and that they did not declare against the Soviet Union for taking part of that overrun country.  But  declaring war might deter Hitler from further invasions and the Soviets were not an immediate threat to Western Europe.

The Western powers were by no means perfect.  There is no perfection among humans.  But compared to the aggressive Nazi police state they were models of decent behaviour and constitutional government.   It is true that the war damaged Britain, perhaps irrecoverably, but World War II was still their “finest hour,” deserving lasting admiration.

It is true that the Allies engaged in terror bombing of civilians, but the Germans started it.

And what about this resurrected Hitler? He created a police state that weighed heavily on his people, curtailing their freedom and demanding  extreme and endless sacrifice, though being Germans many of them liked it.

Military genius he thought himself to be. He had some early successes due to the hesitancy of the Western powers to get into war again. But thinking he could conquer Russia in a few weeks–one of the stupidest delusions in the history of the world.  He never understood Britain or Russia. Like all bad people he thought others had the same motivations as he did.

He continually overruled able and patriotic generals who understood his mistakes.  In the latter stages of the war he was a weakened drug addict ready to sacrifice his people to the last man, woman, and child because they had failed his divine mission.  And hiding in a bunker and escaping the consequences of his actions as his country collapsed. Some patriot!  We cannot imagine such behaviour by Churchill or DeGaule.

The Germans should have overthrown the destroyer of their country by 1944, but they were too used to following orders and thinking of themselves as superior.

The views expressed at AbbevilleInstitute.org are not necessarily those of the Abbeville Institute. 

Clyde Wilson

Clyde Wilson is a distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at the University of South Carolina where he was the editor of the multivolume The Papers of John C. Calhoun. He is the M.E. Bradford Distinguished Chair at the Abbeville Institute. He is the author or editor of over thirty books and published over 600 articles, essays and reviews and is co-publisher of www.shotwellpublishing.com, a source  for unreconstructed Southern books.

View all posts