Peace Terms

Sources please.

 

Sources please. I'll even give you a helping hand. Since the Truman Library has a very good on line presence you should be able to find that letter or a reference to it there if it really exists.

 

But if it had any credibility, it would be present on other non-conspiracy, non-racist places as well, duh.

 

I don't think he realized that that was the point you were making as well. Sort of a Nietzsche'ian moment.

 

So why was Germany building such a large navy if Hitler had no interest in fighting Britain?? Hitler was a pathological liar and could not be trusted at any time

 

1 ) Wrong deduction :the reconstruction of the KM was a matter of national prestige and not an indication of willing to attack Britain : without harbours, even a stronger KM would be no threat to Britain .And the KM was not strong in 1939.


2) This is not correct and also meaningless : Britain and France knew what Hitler wanted (it was what his predecessors wanted) and were not averse from giving it him : the domination of Central Europe, but ON THE CONDITION that it would happen without war . Trust in Hitler played no role . Trust do not play a role in international politics .

 

The entire OP is a conspiracy fallacy, a manipulation of the truth, based on non-facts and imagined sources, farmed from how people (predominently from the Middle East) would like the world to function, so they can continue to blame the UK for all the world's ills. Most people never bother to check facts.

When and where is the evidence that "Britain was willing to talk peace with Germany early in the war if they returned to the gold standard and the international monetary system?"

Let's examine the facts;

"The gold standard was a commitment by participating countries to fix the prices of their domestic currencies in terms of a specified amount of gold. National money and other forms of money (bank deposits and notes) were freely converted into gold at the fixed price. England adopted a de facto gold standard in 1717 after the master of the mint, Sir Isaac Newton, overvalued the guinea in terms of silver, and formally adopted the gold standard in 1819."

"The period from 1880 to 1914 is known as the classical gold standard. During that time, the majority of countries adhered (in varying degrees) to gold. It was also a period of unprecedented economic growth with relatively free trade in goods, labor, and capital."

"The gold standard broke down during World War I, as major belligerents resorted to inflationary finance, and was briefly reinstated from 1925 to 1931 as the Gold Exchange Standard. Under this standard, countries could hold gold or dollars or pounds as reserves, except for the United States and the United Kingdom, which held reserves only in gold. This version broke down in 1931 following Britain’s departure from gold in the face of massive gold and capital outflows."

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/GoldStandard.html

Germany adopted the Gold Standard in 1870.

Why on Earth would Britain force Germany on to a defunct system (The Gold Exchange Standard) which they themselves were no longer using? In WW1, both Britain and Germany suspended the Gold Standard in 1914... Both Britain and Germany tried to adhere to the new Gold Exchange Standard, but this failed to meet the fiscal needs of the Great depression; greater leeway was needed.

"...because the gold standard gives government very little discretion to use monetary policy, economies on the gold standard are less able to avoid or offset either monetary or real shocks. "
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/GoldStandard.html

As a response to the hyperinflation of the early 20's a social and political consensus emerged that the Reichsbank had to maintain the dollar-mark exchange rate.

"Germany ended hyperinflation and restored social order with its commitment to the gold standard. The November 1923 stabilization program committed Germany to exchange 1,392 reichsmarks for a pound of gold. However, German economic stability then became dependent upon the stability of the international gold standard."

http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/capitalisback/CountryData/Germany/Other/Pre1950Series/RefsHistoricalGermanAccounts/Hetzel02.pdf



Every emphasis in bold is my own.

 

The mere existence of the KM was a threat to Britain, Hitler was not interested in mere prestige, he wanted war.

 

You could make a much better argument that the existence or the RN was a threat to Germany.

I would not call finding the source of a specific Churchill quote "trivial", the man wrote a huge amount of stuff, and absence of proof is not proof of absence, but having said that unless someone comes up with a clear reference I would ignore those quotes.

As a gut feeling I would discount an economic main motivation, in 1938 nationalism and ideology were a much bigger force than economics, you cannot explain things like the Spannish civil war based on economic reasoniong.

By 1940 Hitler's credibility was zero, even accepting that his true objectives were East and he had no interest in a war to the West, so he was no threat to France if left alone, which is pretty doubtful as the issue of Alsace Lorraine was going to come up sooner or later, Britain's long standing policy was to prevent anyone from becomming the undisputably dominant European power and there was little doubt Hitler was attempting exactly that.

 

In regards to steverodgers801's post one could also argue by analogy with that one that the USN was a threat to Britain. Or many similar analogies. Such simple statements don't lend much insight IMO