A darker view of 'hero' Churchill

Author says negotiation, not bombs, could have saved lives in WW II
By Patrick T. Reardon
Tribune reporter
March 18, 2008
Nicholson Baker's history of the early stages of the Second World War will surprise and even shock many readers.
Baker, a best-selling novelist, takes a radically different narrative approach from most historians for his non-fiction tale, "Human Smoke" (Simon & Schuster): He knits his story together out of hundreds of small vignettes or scenes, most of which aren't longer than three paragraphs, and, like a documentary filmmaker, he doesn't insert his own voice.
Yet it's clear that Baker thinks Allied leaders, particularly Winston Churchill, were misguided -- or worse -- in attempting to stop Adolf Hitler by starving much of Europe and by bombing many German cities.
Negotiations with the Nazis, even after they gained control of the continent, should have been attempted, Baker said in a recent interview from his home in Maine. Here's an edited transcript:

Q: Churchill is normally portrayed as a hero. You show how he was ordering the bombings of civilians extensively, even when there were indications it wasn't doing a whole lot of good.
A: Some of the things he said, and especially some of the things he did, the way he reveled in the war, surprised me. The biggest surprise, for me, was his fascination with the weapon of starvation, because I think that had the greatest consequences early in the war.

Q: If you don't do what Churchill and the other leaders did, what should you do?
A: Some of the pacifists, I thought, were right on when they said that the people who needed help -- which were, at that early stage of the war, Poles and Jews -- had more of a chance in a situation of negotiation than they did in a state of war. An ongoing war just gradually brutalizes everyone.
There's at least some merit to raising the question whether negotiating with Germany early in the war would have saved millions of lives. I think someone who was a pacifist at the time would say: "Look, Hitler is a middle-aged, crazy, sick man who is known to have these tremendous bursts of irrationality. Only a state of war will keep someone like that in power for decades."

Q: The context of the time was that the sort of negotiation you're talking about would likely have been branded as appeasement.
A: The word "appeasement" has an awful ring. It makes me flinch. Even so, I think that, in the very early months of the war, if the United States had convened some kind of summit and the various European powers had talked, and, secondarily, if the various European powers had been willing to open their doors to the refugees, that things would have been different.
The war was an accumulation of decisions by very different people and resulted in an outcome that was catastrophic for Europe -- all those cities ravaged, millions of people dead, London destroyed. It just couldn't have been much worse. If it couldn't have been much worse, what could they have done differently?

Q: It really seems to me that one of the major points of your book is that, by waging an aggressive war as opposed to negotiating, the Allies helped cause the Holocaust.
A: The Holocaust has to be laid at the door of the people who ordered those killings. Hitler and Himmler and all the lieutenants are to blame for the murders of those millions of Jews.
You could say that the war, as waged by the British, which was an attempt to starve and to bomb -- to create terror, subversion and unhappiness -- that that way of waging the war radicalized German anti-Semitism because it enlisted the entire country in a panic state, in a rage state. So restrictions fell away that would not have fallen away otherwise.


A darker view of 'hero' Churchill -- chicagotribune.com
chicagotribune.com

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman

I highly doubt that negotiations would have stopped WW2.
The only way to stop someone like Hitler is with force.

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I agree. It's amazing how people over 60 years later think that they know better then people who were there and living at the time. Hindsight ids 20/20 to some nowadays. To think that negotiations would have worked with Hitler is absurd.

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman

And to think we have a very recent example:

Did negotiations stop Saddam?

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I'm afraid that these kind of theories of the dark side of the moon will pop up now and then. It is something of a trend at the moment. Churchill was the one who kept the British moral up during the Blitz, he was a true War Lord and I despise those who spit on him.

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Wrong. Hitler never wanted a war with the Brits. Churchill should have minded his own business and not tried to be the savior of mankind. But instead, he decided to ally his country with the Soviet Union. It was none of his damn business which country Hitler wanted to invade, as long as it is not Britain.

Churchill was not in office when Hitler invaded Poland. Britain was already at war with Germany by the time he was. And Russia was invaded in 1941 after that is when the UK and Russia became Allies. Try to read up on History a little.

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman

well said JCF,
I'm not buying that comment at all! they told my Grandfather the same thing in Holland, you know stuff like, "we are your friends, your neighbors, we don't want war with Holland"....... yeah right!

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Members of the Dutch Resistance with 101st AB, Eindhoven. Operation Market Garden.

Scott

I know what happened. So why didn't Churchill even try to negotiate peace?

Bigfun, Holland was only invaded because of its geographic position. It wasn't Hilter's fault that a tiny contry existed between Germany and France.

Why should he have? When he took office was on 10 May 1940. Germany was still at war with the UK and France. France and the UK were allies and Germany was invading France. Are you suggesting that Chruchill should have negotiated with Germany AFTER it had attacked and invaded France? UK's ally? Once again WHY? Britain wasn't losing the war.

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman

What peace? Do you think that Herr Hitler would have let go of Austria, Sudetenland, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, Luxemburg and France voulentary?? And for what?? To spare Germany for the threat of the British Army?? Churchill would not have made peace for any less.


Have you seen a map? Holland is not between Germany and France.
And it wasn't a small country either. They had plenty of colonies.

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'We march. The enemy is retreating in transport. We follow on foot.' Lt.Neil McCallum 5/7 Gordons 19th November 1942

Far-

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman

No, he just wanted war with just about everyone else, especially those he thought were inferior to him. Doesn't this line of reasoning go against the supposed egalitarian teachings of Herr Marx that you seem to espouse?

I am absolutely flabbergasted by this question.

He was negotiating. To borrow from Clausewitz, the UK was engaged in a "continuation of policy by other means", in this case war against an angressor with strong, recent history of occupying weaker nations.

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Best Regards,
JW

ok, get a globe bud!
i'm done with this.

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Members of the Dutch Resistance with 101st AB, Eindhoven. Operation Market Garden.

Scott

Hmmmm, gee, that little girl is between me and the parking space I want. I guess I'll drive over her because it isn't my fault she is standing there.

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Best Regards,
JW

Hitler was misunderstood!! But I heard he was a great dancer LOL.

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman

ok, i'm back!

thanks you two, I needed that!

(i need to go now because i have blown soda all over my laptop!)

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Members of the Dutch Resistance with 101st AB, Eindhoven. Operation Market Garden.

Scott

As with any dictator, this is true.

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American by birth, TEXAN by the grace of GOD!

There you go again singing that song that holds no tune. You won't find any audience here for that song you keep toting around.

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American by birth, TEXAN by the grace of GOD!

Ballroom, ballet or square dancing?

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Best Regards,
JW