[Closed] "We were supposed to be the good guys...we ended up being worse than they were."

Was auch immer Churchill war , Gott sei Dank war er die descisions machen annd du Ben

Yes, he was possibly the mad needed for the situation. Doesn't make him a nice person, though.

The RAF bombed civilian targets before the Luftwaffe

well, apart from when they bombed Warsaw, Wieluri, Frampol, and Kamieniec in Poland killing thousands of Polish civilians in September 1939, they bombed 14 cities in France, including Lyons, in May 1940 and their bombing of Rotterdam on May 14, 1940 resulted in the deaths of 30,000 Dutch civilians...

Churchill was a **** of the highest order. Arguably that's necessary in a military commander, but he wasn't a nice guy.

You should meet my mum - formerly one of Churchill's constituents. She was a child in the East End during the blitz when he pulled the police and fire bridge there out to bolster central london. Those guys you see in the films and photos heroically silhouetted against St Pauls - their own homes and heighbourhoods were burning. Those that survived the bombing were just being robbed blind as there was no police presence either.

She's a nice lady - but capable of some remarkably fruity swears when Churchill gets mentioned

He had racist attitudes towards black Kenyans, Palestinians, Indians,

So did the vast majority of the UK population in 1930.

As avdave says, thank God he was making the decisions at the time and not a load of left wing hand wringers.

What seems to be ignored by the Churchill haterz is that he was the lone voice in the 1930's warning of the threat of the Nazi's. If it wasn't for him we would of signed a peace treaty with Hitler in 1940. The Chamberlain government had had enough.

Where would the left wing hand wingers be now if that had happened?

bit ott, there Mr Cooper. Hitler et al were a multitude of little (and big) ***************'s.

however, you've got to fight fire with fire at times, and i think 1940's was a period that justified it.

also, wasn't it Churchill who had forewarned the Government about the likelihood of war?

This is what hapens in war, it happened on both sides, and in both cases the blame lies not with the airmen ordered to carry out the raid, it lies with the people who made the bad decisions that led to that situation.

So the Germans and their love of Hitler is to blame, IMO. there is a big gulf between being an aggressor and fighting against the aggressor.

Where would the left wing hand wingers be now if that had happened?

Probably in charge...

Wasn't Churchill just permanently pissed? Essentially the survival of the nation was in the hands of the Brown Bottle. The fact that it went well suggests theres something to be said for starting drinking with breakfast

[img] [/img]

Where would the left wing hand wingers be now if that had happened?
Probably in charge...

You mean the left wing, totalitarian, genocidal maniacs?

Besides without the 2 fronts and with extra men and equipment, then Barbarossa probably would of succeeded.

So the Germans and their love of Hitler is to blame, IMO.

That's a nice simple answer. But why did they love Hitler? Because he played a lot of good cards, about making the German people proud and strong again, about how other races were taking what was rightfully German, about how other countries were punishing Germany. Stop me when this sounds familiar, by the way.

What political climate allowed Hitler to come to power? The one created post-WWI where German reparations crippled the economy. WWI led to WWII, and in WWI there was no side of good against evil, it was just a senseless war of empire against empire.

I might be a hand wringer, but if hand wringers ad been in charge then everyone might not have got into that situation in the first place. It's all the imperial, colonial willy-waving that caused it.

Was auch immer Churchill war , [b]Gott sei Dank war er die descisions machen annd du Ben [/b]

wasn't particularly fond of the Jews either.

TBF, not was much of Europe at the time. nor had they been for the last 800 years or more.
[url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermesse_%28festival%29#History ]Kirmesse, 1370[/url] read the bit about the origin of the Kirmesse (Church day)

[url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1066_Granada_massacre ]Grenada, 1066[/url]

[url= http://www.historyofyork.org.uk/themes/norman/the-1190-massacre ]York 1190[/url]

[url= http://www.eretzyisroel.org/~jkatz/expulsions.html ]you get the idea.....[/url]

ninfan - Member

Where would the left wing hand wingers be now if that had happened?
Probably in charge...of a federalist expansionist Europe close to war with Russia again.

ftfy

gobuchul - Member
I would be very interested in hearing your argument to justify calling him a ****.

As has been said, his views on other races for a start.

'Dubious decisions' is putting it lightly.

Advocated using gas against 'uncivilised tribes', big exponent of the concentration camps used by the British in the Boer War and lethal force against peaceful protests.

gobuchul - Member

"He had racist attitudes towards black Kenyans, Palestinians, Indians,"

So did the vast majority of the UK population in 1930.

Of course, it's easy to dismiss any criticism of these actions as anachronistic. Didn't everybody think that way then? One of the most striking findings of Toye's research is that they really didn't: even at the time, Churchill was seen as at the most brutal and brutish end of the British imperialist spectrum. [b]Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin was warned by Cabinet colleagues not to appoint him because his views were so antedeluvian. Even his startled doctor, Lord Moran, said of other races: "Winston thinks only of the colour of their skin."[/b]

[url= http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/not-his-finest-hour-the-dark-side-of-winston-churchill-2118317.html ]Not his finest hour[/url]

TBF, not was much of Europe at the time. nor had they been for the last 800 years or more.

Nothing much changes. Doesn't make his views any more acceptable, though, especially as he was in positions where he could expound and act on his views.

If Charchill's views about Jews are acceptable because they were common views at the time, then logically so are the views of the Nazis.

I might be a hand wringer, but if hand wringers ad been in charge then everyone might not have got into that situation in the first place. It's all the imperial, colonial willy-waving that caused it.

Chamberlin was a lefty anit-war type. and despite his best efforts of persuasiveness he couldn't deter Hitler from taking Poland, Austria or Chezch.

Hitler and his gang were more to the right than the left. German poltics in the 1920's was left leaning.

WWI was in part due in part to the colonial desires and jealously (of the British relations) of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Hitler wanted a Europe wide, land empire. And without the colonies Britain would have gone the same way as Poland, France, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands etc...

Bombing civilians = German Tactic

Didn't the Germans start bombing cities on Hitler's orders as a direct retaliation, after an RAF raid accidentally bombed Berlin?

That was my understanding anyway.

*Goes off to Google*

Edit: it was the Germans that made the mistake. A retaliation strike on Berlin caused Hitler to lose his rag, as he was probably unaware of the German cock-up over London.

"There were also sporadic air raids on a small scale on Birmingham and Liverpool in August 1940 but London was declared 'off limits' by Hitler in the hope that he could still bring Britain to the negotiating table. However, on August 24th, some German aircraft strayed over London due to a navigational error and bombed parts of Bethnal Green, Hackney, Islington, Tottenham and Finchley, prompting a retaliatory raid on Berlin the following night by the RAF.

Furious at this, Hitler ordered the sustained bombing of London and in so doing, ironically relieved the pressure on the RAF Fighter Command and effectively, in the longer term ensured Germany's defeat in the Battle of Britain."

http://www.blitzwalkers.co.uk/blitz.html

I might be a hand wringer, but if hand wringers had been in charge [b][u]on both sides[/u][/b] then everyone might not have got into that situation in the first place. It's all the imperial, colonial willy-waving that caused it.

FTFY

A hand wringer against a well armed psychopath might not end so happily (for the hand wringer that is). Always convenient for the hand ringers to use hindsight.

Didn't the Germans start bombing [i][b]British [/b][/i]cities on Hitler's orders as a direct retaliation, after an RAF raid accidentally bombed Berlin?

yes.

Herr Hitler had also practised new bombing techniques on Spanish towns during the Spanish Civil War. the Luftwaffe then refined their skills on Polish and French and Dutch and Czech and...... you get the idea.

It does need to be seen in context which is very difficult. One thing to bear in mind that Ninfan touched on was bomber command's perception and presentation of the air war, which history shows was... well, dubious. Hard to say what bits they were delusional about and which bits they were misrepresenting. And also the reasoning is open to so much interpretation, some historians see Harris as a fantasist or liar but it always seemed to me that higher command didn't [i]want[/i] to know and Churchill was well into shaping the reality. So are the official records even trustworthy?

And is the reasoning given for a particular action the true reasoning? There's times when the official reasoning is basically a smokescreen so debunking it doesn't undermine the actual logic. The military production value of a target might be exaggerated to conceal the fact that it was attacked for some other reason.

So who knows? Dresden was terrible, but you know what, war isn't very nice. I'm not going to justify it but I don't think it's simple. We were lucky enough to have people in command who'd do terrible things if they were needed. Maybe partly we just need to be at peace with that. It wasn't a Commando comic and sometimes the right thing to do is just a wrong thing. And even if in one particular case it can't be defended, that's something that will inevitably happen when you're making that sort of call, it's an unavoidable outcome.

Right. I'm a pinko liberal like a lot of people on here and I agree that Churchill did some reprehensible things, plus he was about as far from being a man of the people that it's possible to be. But .... he wasn't a drunk (he exaggerated his drinking for effect) and he was exactly the figurehead this country needed in it's 'Darkest hour'. As for Dresden, get a grip! Are people on here seriously suggesting that 'we' were as bad as the Germans and Japanese? I couldn't begin to list the atrocities carried out in the name of Hitler and the Emperor of Japan. They had to be stopped. Plus, it's a myth that most Germans and Japanese didn't agree with the leadership - they only started to disagree when things started to go badly.

Whatever you think of Churchill and there is no doubt like most of us he was a flawed character, nevertheless he was the right person in the right place at the right time and as soon as the job was done the electorate dispensed with him and gave us a Labour Government to which I as a fifties & sixties grammar school educated person who benefited from the NHS will always be grateful.

Off Topic:
Minor rant.

fifties & sixties grammar school educated person who benefited from the NHS will always be grateful

You're lucky. I was the victim of the 1980's comps after the left wing hand wringers destroyed the system that did more for the education of the working class than anything else.

OK back on topic.

-Dereknightrider - exactly.

Me too. Although I wasn't at Grammar School until 1966. You must be even older than me!

The simple fact is, the [url= http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar ]2nd world war is unlikely to have happened if not for funding from several big hitters from the USA[/url]... Most notably [url=

Bush and Allen Dulles[/url]

Whether this was an intentional strategy, or a massive miscalculation is debatable, but if things continue on their current trajectory from situations spawned by the beneficiaries of the money made from the 2nd World War, we may have a 3rd world war to deal with.

More nonsense from JHJ! 🙂

Is there any subject you don't have a conspiracy theory on?

What about the 650b situation?

This is no conspiracy theory, this is documented history.

Don't get me started on 650b 😉

[img] [/img]

And don't forget there was the little matter of those babies, 1500 of them to be precise, no warning, no defence, one hit my mates school playground, no sound then just a huge sucking woosh and all the windows went, glass everywhere all the kids covered in black soot sucked down the chimney to combine with the bloody scratches from the flying glass...

And then the scientists and engineers who created them went on to work for the CIA...

Wasn't Churchill just permanently pissed?

Hitler was on Meth Amphetamin and shit-tablets. My money would be on the boozer.

failedengineer - Member
-Dereknightrider - exactly.

Me too. Although I wasn't at Grammar School until 1966. You must be even older than me!

jivehoneyjive - Member
And then the scientists and engineers who created them went on to work for the CIA...

Er Nasa actually they gave you the 69 moon landing and intercontinental ballistic weaponry.

It wasn't until much later other scientists left Nasa and gave us a bigger disaster, they went to Wall Street and helped create money making algorithms and financial instruments that lead to the global financial melt down.

And yes, he sent soldiers and tanks to quell a peaceful civilian protest in Glasgow

And Athens, shooting from the cover of the Acropolis so that the Greeks couldn't shoot back. Even the Germans didn't do that.

Fast forward to today ....

The military production value of a target might be exaggerated to conceal the fact that it was attacked for some other reason.

You mean like they might be concealing weapons of mass destruction? 😉

the irony of that vid is that Tom Lehrer also obviously has German vorvaters somewhere. (Lehrer is teacher in German).

Er Nasa actually they gave you the 69 moon landing and intercontinental ballistic weaponry.

You're probably right, I was referring to [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip ]Operation Paperclip[/url] (which my bad, was originally under the OSS (the same body Allen Dulles was working for, before later becoming CIA director) but since:

Throughout its operations to 1990, Operation Paperclip imported 1,600 men, as part of the intellectual reparations owed to the United States and the UK, some $10 billion in patents and industrial processes.

It's fair to assume CIA involvement

Might be more ironic if his ancestors had been Nazis.

True. 🙂

Might be more ironic if his ancestors had been Nazis.

Though I imagine that as a Jew that's unlikely.

jivehoneyjive - Member
Er Nasa actually they gave you the 69 moon landing and intercontinental ballistic weaponry.
You're probably right, I was referring to Operation Paperclip (which my bad, was originally under the OSS (the same body Allen Dulles was working for, before later becoming CIA director) but since:

Throughout its operations to 1990, Operation Paperclip imported 1,600 men, as part of the intellectual reparations owed to the United States and the UK, some $10 billion in patents and industrial processes.
It's fair to assume CIA involvement

That's all correct and it didn't stop there, a lot of UK scientists including my uncle 'Thommy' who was an atomic research scientist baled to join the fifties 'brain drain' to a better life in the states, many joining relatives who'd married GI's my entire family on my mother side is still out there.

As to the CIA, having lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis and at the time not realising what a big Military Operation the bay of pigs incident actually was until I visited the revolutionary museum in Havanah some years ago, they (the CIA) have a lot of wicked things to answer for from that period, not least I'm convinced they acted under LBJ's direction to rid the world of the Kennedys, but we'll probably never know that for sure.

Can't find anywhere to replay this morning's interview. Is it the same as this one: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21440139 ... Victor Gregg? A very honest and articulate account.

EDIT: according to Twitter trends it appears it is http://trendinghashtag.com/victor-gregg/

gobuchul - Member
More nonsense from JHJ!
Is there any subject you don't have a conspiracy theory on?
What about the 650b situation?

Indeed, did you know HItler's bike was 650B?

Indeed, did you know HItler's bike was 650B?

Didn't he win that race sponsored by Araya?

[img] [/img]

In responce to some comments above Europeans and in particular Jews where well aware of the existence and what was happening in the concentration camps long before the end of the war. Not all the camps where as harsh as Auschwitz and over the course of the war there were many escapees from other camps who relayed what was happening. The Allies knew and there has been criticism of them for not intervening by bombing the railway network which the Germans where using to deport people to the camps.

What happened in Dresden was a precursor for the atom bombs dropped on Japan. It was well understood that the Japanese would fight extra-ordinarily hard to defend their homeland and the A-bombs almost certainly saved many 100,000's of American lives. In war as a commander that is your over-riding concern.