It’s about 4:27pm here in the UK. In a matter of hours, Germany will invade Poland. It’s 1939.
on 08/31/2009 at 10:12 AM
It feels like 1939 here too. More and more, every day.
Ein Volk!
Ein Reich!
Ein Obama!!
Well, since I feel like taking some things apart:
This amounted to confirmation that the much-touted “Military Alliance” was simply a false front by which Herr Ribbentrop hoped to scare the British and French into making further concessions a la Munich.
Well, we all know how that turned out.
The action of the democracies, said Count Ciano, so bolstered the prestige of the Soviet Government that the Nazis had to do something about it. “If the great democracies had ignored Russia,” feelingly continued Ciano, “Germany would have had well-founded motives for doing the same.” Thus Britain and France were officially blamed for starting the war.
I call BS.
The old Weimar Republic had DISTURBINGLY close ties to Bolshevik Moscow (ironically started by the extremely Autocratic and monarchist General Staff in the postwar period!), and while Hitler did not like Stalin, he still used those old channels considerably, and MONTHS before this went into effect, the Germans and the Soviets were already planning this.
Repudiating rumors that King Vittorio Emanuele and Crown Prince Umberto opposed the Axis policy which might have carried Italy into war, the Foreign Minister said that on the contrary His Majesty and His Royal Highness, foreseeing this possibility, had “asked the privilege and honor of serving the country in arms.”
Not likely. The Royal Family was already feeling the squeeze from the Fascisti, and by this point in time they more or less recognized that Western aid was the only thing that would keep them alive (of course, they didn’t mention it).
He warned Britain and France that “real peace” will be impossible to get if they insist on Austria, Czecho-Slovakia and Poland regaining their independence
On the contrary, Real peace would be IMPOSSIBLE without such steps. As the failure of the latter two to Communist pressure showed.
Posted by Turtler
08/31/2009 at 11:13 PM
Re royal family .. according to the diary of course, the king was very much anti-German right from the beginning. Duce went back and forth and back and forth and hoped for a return to Roman glory. Jealous of German victories etc. Old story.
I happened to find that Dec.’39 article from TIME and posted it merely out of historic interest. Who knows if what’s quoted is actually what was said all the time. Journalists have been known to take freedoms in the interest of the story. But the article is certainly at odds with what Count Ciano wrote in his diary in the same period.
In FACT ... here’s what he wrote on December 4, 1939. Part of it anyway.
In all the Italian cities there are sporadic demonstrations by students in favor of Finland and against Russia. But we must not forget that the people say “Death to Russia” and really mean “Death to Germany.”
more from the same date.
I showed the Duce the report of an Italian permitted to live in Posen. With a simplicity which accentuates the horror of the facts, he describes all that the Germans are doing:
unmentionable atrocities without reason. The Duce himself was indignant; he advised me to see to it that by indirect channels the Americans and French newspapers get the contents of the report. The world must know.
