How Woodrow Wilson Might Have Stopped Hitler

I have referenced Wilson’s Fourteen Points previously.  With this post, I would like to explore an alternative history: what if Wilson acted as if he actually meant the words he stated in his speech?

I will not go through all fourteen, nor apply these to all combatants.  As I am exploring the book by Gerd Schultze-Rhonhof, “1939 – The War That Had Many Fathers,” I will explore a few portions of the speech that pertain directly on the situation of the Sudeten Germans in Czechia.

What was this Fourteen Points speech?

The "Fourteen Points" was a statement by United States President Woodrow Wilson that the Great War was being fought for a moral cause and for postwar peace in Europe…. The speech made by Wilson on January 8, 1918 laid out a policy (free trade, open agreements, democracy and self-determination). The Fourteen Points speech was the only explicit statement of war aims by any of the nations fighting in World War I.

The speech emphasized democracy and self-determination (within the context, to mean the will of a given group of people as determined by popular vote).  For example, from the speech:

[Regarding settlement talks then underway between Germany and Russia] For whom are the representatives of the Central Empires speaking? Are they speaking for the majorities of their respective parliaments or for the minority parties, that military and imperialistic minority which has so far dominated their whole policy and controlled the affairs of Turkey and of the Balkan states which have felt obliged to become their associates in this war?

The Russian representatives have insisted, very justly, very wisely, and in the true spirit of modern democracy, that the conferences they have been holding with the Teutonic and Turkish statesmen should be held within open, not closed, doors, and all the world has been audience, as was desired.

Point 10 was specific to the Sudeten Germans, as, until the conclusion of the war they had been under Austrian rule:

X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development.

Finally, a statement that would lead one to believe that an acceptance and demonstration of democratic principles by the Central Powers would result in respectful treatment by the Allies:

We have no jealousy of German greatness, and there is nothing in this program that impairs it. We grudge her no achievement or distinction of learning or of pacific enterprise such as have made her record very bright and very enviable. We do not wish to injure her or to block in any way her legitimate influence or power. We do not wish to fight her either with arms or with hostile arrangements of trade if she is willing to associate herself with us and the other peace- loving nations of the world in covenants of justice and law and fair dealing. We wish her only to accept a place of equality among the peoples of the world, -- the new world in which we now live, -- instead of a place of mastery.

Anschluß für Großdeutschland

“1939 – The War That Had Many Fathers,” by Gerd Schultze-Rhonhof. 

The author continues with an examination of the details behind Hitler’s annexation of Austria into Germany.  I suspect that, in the eyes of the politically correct, the author will cross some lines when it comes to describing the actions of Hitler. 

The author attempts to answer the question: “What induced my father’s generation to follow Adolf Hitler into a new war, just 20 years after the end of World War I?”

As he makes clear in the title, the author finds many “fathers” of this war – it isn’t solely Hitler that plunged Europe into a new darkness just twenty years after the last.  Conceptually, the author is on safe ground here – many historians also find several actions by all parties that led to the Second World War.

Now, to the Anschluss.  First, from Wikipedia:

The Anschluss, also known as the Anschluss Österreichs, was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938.  This was in contrast with the Anschluss movement (Austria and Germany united as one country), which had been attempted since as early as 1918 when the Republic of German-Austria attempted union with Germany which was forbidden by the Treaty of Saint Germain and Treaty of Versailles peace treaties.

Schultze-Rhonhof provides a somewhat different interpretation.  The translator of this work begins by explaining the term “Anschluss”:

…the word has traditionally been translated into English as “annexation.”  But German has other words which properly note “annexation”…  And since “annexation”…may refer to a unification against the will of the people annexed and since Germany at the Nuremburg Trials was explicitly charged with having “annexed” Austria against the will of its people, Schultze-Rhonhof believes that “annexation” is a mistranslation of Anschluss and has requested that I… translate the noun Anschluss rather as “union,” unification,” or “reunification…” (Page 109, translator’s footnote)

As I mentioned in an earlier post, in Germany after the Second World War, it is required that all decisions of Nuremberg must be respected – including within the education curriculum.  This includes the charge of annexation. 

This does not seem inconsistent with the definition here:

…union, especially the political union of Austria with Germany in 1938.  Origin: 1920–25; < German:  consolidation, joining together

So was it annexation, or union?

Democracy: The god That Demands Revenge

“1939 – The War That Had Many Fathers,” by Gerd Schultze-Rhonhof. 

Schultze-Rhonhof continues with an examination of the factors that a) led to the Great War, b) came due to the Peace Treaty at Versailles.  These factors were key in the run-up to the Second World War.  I will not go through these in detail; it has been well documented elsewhere a) that – unlike the propaganda of the time – Germany and Austria were not the only instigators of the war, and b) Versailles was instrumental in generating a volatile political climate in post-war Germany.

Actions of the British and French especially were instrumental in bringing on the conflict; at the same time, the Kaiser offered proposals that could avoid the coming calamity.  Of course, the Kaiser also took actions – by design or by blunder – that helped to move events toward war.

What I find of interest is the author’s focus on the propaganda used in the democracies to motivate the populations toward war.  In this, he provides a real-world example of Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s work, for example from “Democracy: The god That Failed.”  Contrasting monarchical wars with democratic wars:

In contrast, democratic wars tend to be total wars.  In blurring the distinction between the rulers and the ruled, a democratic republic strengthens the identification of the public with a particular state.  …democratic republicanism inevitably leads to nationalism, i.e., the emotional identification of the public with large, anonymous groups of people…. Interstate wars are thus transformed into national wars.  (Page 36-37)

Today, this is readily apparent in the language used by common citizens: “our war,” “our troops,” “we sent them to fight.”  Such language would be foreign to the population under a traditional monarch.

Hoppe, citing Michael Howard:

Once the state ceased to be regarded as ‘property’ of dynastic princes, and became instead the instrument of powerful forces dedicated to such abstract concepts as Liberty, or Nationality, or Revolution, which enabled large numbers of the population to see in that state the embodiment of some absolute Good for which no price was too high, no sacrifice too great to pay; then the “temperate and indecisive contests” of the rococo age appeared as absurd anachronisms. (Page 37)

Further, citing J.F.C. Fuller:

The influence of the spirit of nationality, that is of democracy, on wars was profound… [it] emotionalized war and consequently brutalized it….  National armies fight nations, royal armies fight their like, the first obey a mob – always demented, the second a king – generally sane…. (Page 38n)

How does Hoppe’s work apply?  In order to mobilize an entire nation into war – not just for the objective of gaining volunteers and legitimizing conscription, but also for a complete takeover of the home economy – a frenzy must be created. 

From “Monarchy and War,” by Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn – taken from the volume edited by Hoppe, “The Myth of National Defense”:  in a democracy, as recruits are taken from a general population – a population that believes it has some say in its political dealings:

…the people itself has to be indoctrinated, in other words, made to hate the enemy collectively.  For this purpose governments invoke in modern times the support of the mass media, which will inform the people about the evil of the enemy – with little or no regard for the truth.

In World War I, the Western Allies, being more democratic, were also more skilled in organizing collective hatreds. (Page 97)

Further, from the volume edited by Hoppe:  “Is a Democracy More Peaceful than Other Forms of Government?” by Gerard Radnitzky, writing on the toolbox of tricks and deceit of a bellicose president:

Rule #1: First, get control over the media: they are indispensable as means of propaganda.  A democratic president has to sell a “war,” embarking on the mass marketing of the war that he has in mind. (Page 177)

Turning the enemy into something not human, into a population bent on world conquest, via relentless propaganda, is a method first significantly deployed in the west in the run-up to the Great War. 

The Assassination that Began the Century of War

And it isn’t the one that you are thinking of….

“1939 – The War That Had Many Fathers,” by Gerd Schultze-Rhonhof. 

As mentioned in my first post on this book, the author has been dismissed in Germany regarding his historical views on the beginnings of the Second World War.  From what I read in the preface, I found no reason to dismiss his views – and in any case, one can hold wrong views on certain subjects while providing valuable insights in others.  It is for these hidden gems that I am reading the book.  So, I continue.

I found one of those hidden gems in the first few pages – or is it a wacky assertion from a wrong-headed revisionist?  If his point is valid, it provides a valuable insight – at least to me – into the manipulations by the elite at the turn of the last century and leading to the century of war.

The British – German Rivalry

The author begins by pointing to two mistakes by the German politicians prior to 1914 that led to the Great War:

They fail to extend the German – Russian Mutual Protection Pact, and they give to the economic upswing in Germany a maritime component.

The author sees in the first the opening for Russia to be drawn to France, and in the second a challenge to Britain on the seas.  There is nothing terribly controversial here – many historians, mainstream and revisionist, have pointed to one or both of these factors.

From Britain’s view, Germany – post unification – was becoming the power on the continent with which it should have concern – replacing France.  In various measures, Germany was growing into an economic powerhouse – the production of coal, iron, steel, etc.  In 1887 in London, the “Merchandise Marks Act” was introduced, with the hope to attach stigma to products thereafter labeled “Made in Germany.”

Britain viewed it as good policy to keep a balance of power on the continent, thus freeing its hand elsewhere.  Germany threatened not only that balance, but now could even threaten Britain itself.  Britain’s views changed from seeing France as the primary continental threat to seeing this in in Germany:

On 1 January 1907 a top official of the British Foreign Ministry, Sir Eyre Crowe, drafts “an analysis of British Relations with France and Germany for his King.” … Now and in the future, Crowe concludes, Germany counts as England’s only opponent. (Page 22)

The British will therefore work to isolate Germany in the field of foreign policy, and the author suggests that German blunders provide the opportunity for this.

As mentioned, England previously saw France as its biggest competitor in the colonies; it now reached agreements with France on such matters.  A 1904 treaty would coordinate colonial interests.  In 1911, the British military promises France the support of six army divisions in the event of war with Germany.  And without a proper treaty with Russia, this would one day place Germany in a strong vice.

Germaniam esse delendam to Protect Trade and Transport

Schultze-Rhonhof identifies comments coming out of England and against Germany almost immediately upon the formation of the German Reich in 1871.  For example, he quotes Prime Minister Disraeli in a speech before the Lower House:

“The balance of power has been completely destroyed, and the country which suffers the most from this and feels the effect of this change most strongly, is England.” (Page 33)

Deputy Robert Peel adds that Germany has been united under a military “despotism.” (Page 33)

The author laments: “So Germany – just because unified – has already become a danger, and indeed for all of Europe.” (Page 34)

The press gets in on the act:

The London Saturday Review, an upper class journal, writes on 24 August 1895:

“We English have always waged war against our competitors in trade and transport.  Our main competitor today is no longer France, but Germany…. In a war against Germany we would be in a position to win a lot and to lose nothing.” (Page 34)

On 1 February 1896 the same journal writes:

“If tomorrow every German were eliminated, there would be no British business nor any English enterprise which would not profit (lit “grow”).  If every Englishman were to vanish tomorrow, the Germans would reap gains…. One of the two must quit the field.  Get ready for the fight with Germany, for Germaniam esse delendam.” (Page 34)

Germany must be destroyed….

World War Two, a View from Different Eyes

I have in the past written much about the Second World War, from Pearl Harbor to the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; from Roosevelt’s manipulations to get the US into the war to the forced migrations of millions of Germans and other Europeans after the war.  While much of this was based on work from revisionist historians (even Herbert Hoover!), most of the authors on which my posts were based were from the United States or otherwise affiliated with the victorious side.

I am now beginning to go through another history of the war, this one by a German revisionist historian.  The book is entitled “1939 – The War That Had Many Fathers,” by Gerd Schultze-Rhonhof. 

About the author:

Schultze-Rhonhof was born in Weimar. He entered military service in 1959 a few years after the Bundeswehr was founded. When he retired in 1996, he was Territorial Commander-in-chief in charge of Lower Saxony and Bremen and held the rank of Generalmajor (Major General).

The book is quite controversial, even (or especially) in Germany:

In his book “Der Krieg, der viele Väter hatte” [The War that had many Fathers], he argues that Adolf Hitler had not wanted to risk war right until September 1939. Thus, Schultze-Rhonhof especially blames Poland for the outbreak of World War II as a result the rejection of German willingness of negotiations. Besides, also Great Britain, France, the United States and the Soviet Union had taken their part in the outbreak of the war because they had driven Poland into the war.

It should be noted that the author does not seem to be introducing a book that exonerates Hitler.  He suggests that the war had many fathers – not just one.  This is certainly an uncontroversial suggestion to anyone with even a moderate understanding of the roots of the war.

From my past reading, it is quite clear that the US, Great Britain, and France did, in fact, push Poland into war and did cause Poland to not negotiate with Hitler and Germany, for example from “Freedom Betrayed,” by Herbert Hoover:

Further American activities were disclosed after the Germans had invaded Poland in September 1939 and seized the Polish Foreign Office records.  The Germans released a mass of documents which certainly indicated that the American Ambassador to France, William C. Bullitt, who could only act on Mr. Roosevelt’s authority, had made a profusion of oral assurances to officials of Poland and France which they could only interpret as a promise of assistance of some kind of force from the United States.

Hoover documents his conversations with US Ambassador to Britain, Joseph Kennedy, during the run-up to the war.  Hoover met with Kennedy in May, 1945.  According to Kennedy: