WWII revisionist who says it was right to cede Czechoslovakia to Hitler in 1938, cited by neo-Nazi Institute for Historical Review.
Nick Baumann: I cover national politics and civil liberties issues for the Washington, DC bureau of Mother Jones. I have also written for The Economist, ...
.Topics
- .IHR Neo-Nazi review cites Baumann
- .National Review "Yes, Chamberlain’s policy was wrong."
- .New York Sun - reprint of National Review
- .Slate - carries Baumann apologetics for Chamberlain
.IHR
http://ihr.org/archive/201310
... Today the prime minister is generally portrayed as a foolish man who was wrong to try to "appease" Hitler — a cautionary tale for any leader silly enough to prefer negotiation to confrontation. But among historians, that view changed in the late 1950s, when the British government began making Chamberlain-era records available to researchers ... Explains David Dutton, a British historian who wrote a recent biography of the prime minister. "The evidence was so overwhelming," he says, that many historians came to believe that Chamberlain "couldn't do anything other than what he did" at Munich.
- Munich, 75 Years Later - Yes, Chamberlain’s policy was wrong.
- But Nick Baumann’s effort, in Slate last week, to resuscitate the strategic reputation of Neville Chamberlain ... and certainly not Winston Churchill, ...
- .Slate
Sep 28, 2013 · By Nick Baumann . British Prime ... speaks to Adolf Hitler's interpreter Paul Schmidt during their meeting at the Hotel Dreesen at Godesberg, Germany, in ...
- .Sour.ources.Oct 01, 2013 · Ceding Czechoslovakia to Hitler in 1938: ... Do tell, Nick. First, ... InBaumann’s account it is as if this never happened.If you want a good lesson in why the left can never be trusted with political power, especially in foreign policy, look no further than Mother Jones Washington bureau chief Nick Baumann, writing in Slate this week that “Neville Chamberlain Was Right.” What was he right about? Ceding Czechoslovakia to Hitler in 1938: “The maligned British prime minister did what we would want any responsible leader to do.”Do tell, Nick. First, Britain was too weak to stand up to Hitler in 1938. “In general, British generals believed the military and the nation were not ready for war.” (And whose fault was that?) “Chamberlain’s diplomatic options were limited as well.” (Again, whose fault was that? Chamberlain repeatedly declined to seek a diplomatic accommodation with the Soviet Union and Poland, or invite the diplomatic contributions of the United States, which FDR was willing to make.) “Nor was the British public ready for war in 1938.” Again. . . never mind.The most egregious part of Baumann’s revisionism has to be this paragraph:Nor is the modern view of Hitler reflective of how the Nazi dictator was seen in the late 1930s. Blitzkrieg and concentration camps were not yet part of the public imagination. The British had already been dealing with one fascist, Benito Mussolini, for years before Hitler took power, and top British diplomats and military thinkers saw Hitler the way they saw Mussolini—more bravado than substance. Moreover, many Europeans thought German complaints about the settlement of World War I were legitimate. We now see Hitler’s actions during the early and mid-1930s as part of an implacable march toward war. That was not the case at the time. German rearmament and the reoccupation of the Rhineland seemed inevitable, because keeping a big country like Germany disarmed for decades was unrealistic. Hitler’s merging of Austria and Germany seemed to be what many Austrians wanted. Even the demands for chunks of Czechoslovakia were seen, at the time, as not necessarily unreasonable—after all, many Germans lived in those areas.The ignorance or willful self-blindness of this paragraph is stunning. It is barely worth contesting point-by-tedious-point. What is astonishing about this article is that it leaves out completely any acknowledgement that Churchill propounded the contrary case in real time, and persistently. In Baumann’s account it is as if this never happened. Above all, Churchill understood what today’s liberals fail to recognize as “regime questions.” To suggest that Hitler’s innate aggressive designs and murderous hatred of the Jews was poorly understood in 1938 is a willful blindness of the worst kind. Never mind Churchill’s essay about Hitler from 1935 (“Hitler and His Choice”) that nailed the likelihood of Hitler’s aggression channeling itself into another war (the British Foreign Office didn’t want Churchill to re-publish this essay in a book in 1937, so sensitive were the appeasers to “offending” Hitler). As Churchill perceived the matter in October 1937, a full year before Munich:History News Network | Munich, 75 Years LaterHistory News NetworkHistorical revisionism is always in season and is generally a useful, or at least diverting, activity. But Nick Baumann’s effort, in Slate last week, to resuscitate ...
- Historical revisionism is always in season and is generally a useful, or at least diverting, activity. But Nick Baumann’s effort, in Slate last week, to resuscitate the strategic reputation of Neville Chamberlain (British prime minister, 1937–40), on the 75th anniversary of the Munich Agreement, was a bridge too far in historical myth-making.It is correct that Britain and France could not go to war to prevent Germans in Czechoslovakia, especially concentrated in Sudetenland, from becoming Germans in fact; and that, as a practical matter, this meant conceding Sudetenland to Germany, as the Czechs could not deport a million Germans without justifying and bringing down on themselves an irresistible German invasion.Baumann breathlessly revealed what every even slightly informed person on the subject already knew: that Britain and France had no ability to stop Germany on the ground in Central Europe. Even at the end of World War II, Britain had only 25 divisions engaged against Germany in Northwest Europe and Italy (compared with 80 U.S. and 16 French and Canadian combined). The British army (like all other armies) could defeat the formidable Germans only when they had they had a heavy numerical and armament advantage, as at El Alamein in Egypt in November 1942. No sane person ever suggested that Czechoslovakia could be successfully defended from Hitler militarily if he attacked it....- See more at: http://www.hnn.us/article/153491#sthash.UeoVjp5U.dpuf
- Ceding Czechoslovakia to Hitler in 1938: ... Do tell, Nick. First, ... In Baumann’s account it is as if this never happened.
- Oct 01, 2013 · ... appeasement is back in fashion judging from a stunningly wrongheaded article at Slate by Nick Baumann ... promise from Hitler of ... Baumann defends ...I do not grudge our loyal, brave people, who were ready to do their duty no matter what the cost, who never flinched under the strain of last week – I do not grudge them the natural, spontaneous outburst of joy and relief when they learned that the hard ordeal would no longer be required of them at the moment; but they should know the truth. They should know that there has been gross neglect and deficiency in our defences; they should know that we have sustained a defeat without a war, the consequences of which will travel far with us along our road; they should know that we have passed an awful milestone in our history, when the whole equilibrium of Europe has been deranged, and that the terrible words have for the time being been pronounced against the Western democracies:“Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting.”And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.Winston Churchill, conclusion of speech condemning the Munich Agreement, October 5, 1938Well, well, well, appeasement is back in fashion judging from a stunningly wrongheaded article at Slate by Nick Baumann defending the Munich agreement of 1938, on its 75th anniversary, by which British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sold Czechoslovakia into Nazi slavery for a worthless promise from Hitler of “peace in our time”. “Our time” turned out to be very short with the Nazis commencing World War II with the invasion of Poland less than a year later in September 1939. Go here to read the article.Baumann defends Chamberlain on the following grounds. I will respond to each in turn.1. Britain Militarily Unready-First, a look at the military situation. Most historians agree that the British army was not ready for war with Germany in September 1938. If war had broken out over the Czechoslovak crisis, Britain would only have been able to send two divisions to the continent—and ill-equipped divisions, at that. Between 1919 and March 1932, Britain had based its military planning on a “10-year rule,” which assumed Britain would face no major war in the next decade. Rearmament only began in 1934—and only on a limited basis. The British army, as it existed in September 1938, was simply not intended for continental warfare. Nor was the rearmament of the Navy or the Royal Air Force complete. British naval rearmament had recommenced in 1936 as part of a five-year program. And although Hitler’s Luftwaffe had repeatedly doubled in size in the late 1930s, it wasn’t until April 1938 that the British government decided that its air force could purchase as many aircraft as could be produced.Response: Britain was certainly in a sorry state for war in September 1938. Churchill had been sounding the tocsin that Britain was militarily unprepared throughout most of the decade. The dominant faction in his own party, the Conservatives, bitterly fought his calls for rearmament in the face of the rising Nazi threat, and preferred to engage in wishful thinking that the Nazis were bluffing and that deals to preserve the peace could be cut with Hitler. Chamberlain’s appeasement policy arose out of a desire to avoid the cost of rearmament and an inexcusable misreading of what Hitler was all about, inexcusable since Hitler had made his ambitions for conquest quite clear in Mein Kampf.- See more at: http://the-american-catholic.com/2013/10/01/appeasement-defended/#sthash.opJKpWUy.dpuf
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