Pat Buchanan Loses His Mind
By patriotroom Posted in History — Comments (67) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Pat Buchanan has provided the lefties with some nice ammo. He, like Bruce Ramsey of the Seattle Times, believes that Hitler was reasonable in demanding territory from a sovereign country. First, he distinguishes appeasement and indicts Chamberlain for committing it in Munich.
Appeasement is the name given to what Neville Chamberlain did at Munich in September 1938. Rather than fight Germany in another great war — to keep 3.5 million Germans under a Czech rule they despised — he agreed to their peaceful transfer to German rule. With these Germans went the lands their ancestors had lived upon for centuries, German Bohemia, or the Sudetenland.
Chamberlain’s negotiated deal with Hitler averted a European war — at the expense of the Czech nation. That was appeasement.
Then he goes wildly off the reservation.
German tanks, however, did not roll into Poland until a year later, Sept. 1, 1939. Why did the tanks roll? Because Poland refused to negotiate over Danzig, a Baltic port of 350,000 that was 95 percent German and had been taken from Germany at the Paris peace conference of 1919, in violation of Wilson’s 14 Points and his principle of self-determination.
Hitler had not wanted war with Poland. He had wanted an alliance with Poland in his anti-Comintern pact against Joseph Stalin.
But the Poles refused to negotiate. Why? Because they were a proud, defiant, heroic people and because Neville Chamberlain had insanely given an unsolicited war guarantee to Poland. If Hitler invaded, Chamberlain told the Poles, Britain would declare war on Germany.
From March to August 1939, Hitler tried to negotiate Danzig. But the Poles, confident in their British war guarantee, refused. So, Hitler cut his deal with Stalin, and the two invaded and divided Poland.
The cost of the war that came of a refusal to negotiate Danzig was millions of Polish dead, the Katyn massacre, Treblinka, Sobibor, Auschwitz, the annihilation of the Home Army in the Warsaw uprising of 1944, and 50 years of Nazi and Stalinist occupation, barbarism and terror.
Poland was a sovereign nation. Treaties following a war routinely redefine boundaries. For Hitler to unilaterally decide, after Germany started, and lost, World War I, that he didn't like the deal, does not justify redrawing the map by force. By Buchanan's logic, Mexico would be justified invading Texas because they didn't think that war worked out all that well for them either.
So we have the Buchanan Doctrine: If you don't negotiate with an adversary for territory he thinks is rightfully his, then you should expect to be invaded.
Buchanan makes a lot of sense a lot of the time, but not this time.
Bill Dupray at The Patriot Room
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In 1992 Buchanan ran a reasonable campaign in the primaries against Bush Sr. who, Gulf War I or no Gulf War I, wrote his political obituary when he broke his 'no new taxes' promise. Unfortunately, Buchanan couldn't get traction and we ended up with President Bill Clinton. After that campaign Buchanan wandered off into the wilderness of populism and hasn't really been a conservative since.
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the day he was scheduled to give a speech at some manufacturing plant in the northeast and the management handed out the pink slips to workers before he gave the speech. The emotional impact of seeing all those people he identified with was devastating. I don't think he ever really recovered.
B-b-bye, Pat, you feckless, traitorous, poultroonish, anti-semitic, self-absorbed, hypocritical, pretentious, has been, reactionary, whiny fraud.
but there is evidence that Hitler did not want war with the West. He wanted war with Russia, but would have just as soon the Brits and French not declare war on him for his adventure in Poland.
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Molon Labe!
I think he wanted Russia first, then he would have turned around and gone for the others. He wanted it all, but, as you say, wanted the Russians first.
Bill Dupray at The Patriot Room
but there is historical evidence that he could have "lived" with a British Empire as long as Germany was the major continental player.
His desire to to invade Russia was so strong, that he could not wait to consolidate strength in the West. In many ways, the depth of invasion in the West was a surprise to Hitler and his generals. In fact, the lead elements were stopped from advancing out of caution, something that saved the men at Dunkirk.
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Molon Labe!
... a lot like Iran, these days.
He simply wanted to pick and choose the scheduling.
The only thing that saved us was Hitler's own incompetence.
The 'evidence' is far from convincing, but also puts another layer of truth on Buchanan's bizarre lies.
I have not cared for Buchanan since 1992, but owuld at least listen.
Now he is simply another facet of the same piece of dried fecal matter that Olberman inhabits.
Pat Buchanan is correct the same way a broken watch is correct: by coincidence.
Every sentance of what Buchanan said about germany and Poland is a lie bordering on neo-Nazi holocaust denier in flavor if not scope.
The disgust any historically literate person gets in reading Buchanan float out, like some sort of scrap raw sewage, the idea that Hitler's holocaust, planned for since the the period of his "mein kampf", was the *fault* of those hard headed Poles for not negotiating is entirely justified.
Buchanan either does not know history or bets his audience, which must flip between Olberman, old issues of Ron Paul newsletters, and whatever station whose air time Pat is currently polluting, is too stupid to know the history of the pre-WWII period.
Hitler and Stalin invaded Poland together, and had carved it up between themselves, according to their secret war plan for Poland.
The invasion of Poland was entirely based on a fabricated excuse by the Germans, and Polish 'negotiation' short of capitulation would only have, at most delayed the Nazi decision to invade.
I never liked Buchana much. Since 1992, and his evisceration of the republican party which served only democrats, did not make me like him more.
His pro-Arab/anti-Israel stance has long since become poorly veiled anti-semitism. But I never thought I would see him devolve into a neo-Nazi holocaust denier/justifier.
I knock the dust off of my shoes regarding this political hack.
was because the Poles would not negotiate over Danzig. Hitler saw himself as the next Frederick the Great and he was bound and determined to fight a war sooner or later. I understand why the Allies tried to delay as long as they could, but sooner or later Hitler was going to unleash that Army he had developed on someone.
NC
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle
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Molon Labe!
Even his history is really bad....
o Danzig was not part of Poland in 1939. When Poland reappeared on the map in 1918 (for the first time since 1775), Danzig was made a "free city." Because of this, new Poland constructed the new city of Gdynia to be its Baltic port; Gdynia is some 15 or 20 miles north of Danzig (now Gdansk) of course. Yes, I've been to both.
o The "Sudetenland" hadn't been part Germany before 1918 or any time anywhere near before that. It had long been part of the Habsburg Empire; "Czechoslovakia" was one of the states carved out of the remnants of Austria-Hungary after WWI. Like the Austrians themselves, Hitler's claim on Sudetenland was based on language and "culture," not any real history of political association with Germany.
To be fair, German history is too convoluted to simply assert that only those German speakers in the "German Empire" as of 1914 counted as "Germans." Others who had never been part of Hohenzollern Germany (aka Kleindeutschland- little Germany) certainly considered themselves to be members of the German nation (in other words, they were ethnically German)
Sudeten Germans considered themselves to be German (by language and culture), and, although they had never been part of the 19th century "Hohenzollern Germany, the Sudetens were German speaking members of the Holy Roman Empire for centuries. When you consider the historically convoluted gnarl of German states and political entites, being a German speaking part of the Holy Roman Empire and Austria-Hungary counted as being German to basically the same extent as being part of 2nd Reich Hohenzollern Germany.
The Austrians had likewise never been part of kleindeutsch Hohenzollern Germany, but they certainly considered themselves to be German. In fact, the German rump of Austria-Hungary that was left after WW1 initally called itself "German Austria," and whose inhabitants voted overwhelmingly to join with Germany after WW1. The Entente refused this and, in the Treaty of Saint Germain, forced "German Austria" to call itself merely "Austria"
It would have been confusing if we had *two* East Germanies.
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Yep, all true.
Hitler was pushing the envelope all the time - former explicitly German territory, then German-speaking regions, then of course the ultimate goal of Lebensraum in Poland and Ukraine....
BTW, you're absolutely right about German history being territorially convoluted beyond belief. The whole of central Europe is like that. E.g., three or so years back, I found myself in a little slice of real estate that from 1918 to 1991 had been part of (Hapsburg) Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, the Soviet Union, and then Ukraine. Interestingly, I found out later that Milton Friedman's parents were from that region!
on the stages of world socialism should we be so unfortunate as to get a Dem administration? You've seen the labs!
would be the reason MSNBC loves him....he is an old fool!
Freedom of Religion NOT Freedom from Religion
paleoconservatism, antisemitism, and populism.
just a bizarre little man.
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle
He did leave the party (ran for President under the "Reform" ticket in 2000), did he actually come back?
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while running his Japan-bashing, anti-trade campaign of 1992.
Or was it a BMW? Whatever!
whose mind did he buy to replace it?
And for our bonus question, worth $400:
at which flea market did he find it?
In defense of Chamberlain, appeasement back then meant avoiding war with Germany when no Englishmen were held prisoner by the Germans and when England itself had not been attacked.
Well today, they have held Americans prisoner for 444 days, they have launched terrorist attacks on the marine barracks, they have attacked the Cole, they have launched terrorist attacks on many of America's NATO allies, and they have attacked America itself.
Even by Chamberlain's definition, the time for appeasement is past. Winston Churchill said that appeasement is hoping the crocodile will eat you last. Well, today it's time to hunt crocs.
http://gamecock.blogtownhall.com/2006/07/29/where_is_the_lobotomy_scar_o...
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
I would suggest that Pat's recent writings make little sense, and only rarely.
To suggest that Hitler would have negotiated with Poland in good faith up to August '39, while signing the pact with Stalin and moving troops to the border, is not merely laughable, but pitiable.
He is a great analyst of current political events, immigration and the judiciary. And on the McLaughlin Group he is objective on the war.
Plus, all of his books are mostly brilliant.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
I'm both a Buchanan fan (though decreasingly so every day) and a Germanophile, but I think that Buchanan is incredibly off base when it comes to interpreting WW2.
Hitler and the Nazis were malveolently evil and aggressive. They definately wanted war with Poland. Nazi leadership wanted to conquer them, take their land, take their Aryan-looking babies to raise as Germans in adoptive German families, enslave some of them, and put the rest in a reservation on the other side of the Urals. That was the basis of Lebensraum- to remove the inferior Slavs from fertile Eastern Europe farm land and resettle them accross the Urals in large scale concentration-camp like reservations. The Nazis really didn't hide those goals very well, either.
I can understand an argument that, when taken in context, Munich was arguably "reasonable" (but in hindsight wrong- read the Ramsey thread if you want to understand why I'm saying this). However, the invasion of Czechoslovakia made crystal clear that Hitler wanted more than just German lands- he intended to conquer his non-German neighbors.
Buchanan is too smart to be so naieve about this. It's foolish to think that handing him Danzig would've kept him at bay. If you combine this seemingly willful blindness with some of his weird gas chamber questioning comments, you start to get a picture of a man who might be a little too willing to give the Nazis the benefit of the doubt.
I suspect that the underlying premise of Buchanan's article (left unsaid) is that if the West had negotiated over Poland, rather than giving a blanket guarantee, WWII would not have started in Poland and the West might have avoided the worst of the war. Germany would likely have dominated Eastern Europe (and may yet in our day) but in the end, and after all the millions dead, Poland was not saved but became part of the Russian Empire.
Germany would likely have invaded Russia anyway(as that was always Hitler's goal). No telling who would have won but the best hope of the West in 1939, after the debacle in Munich, would have been a Germany and Russia fighting themselves to extinction.
Then perhaps the West could have jumped into the war late , at low cost, and liberated Eastern Europe.
Pat's a smart smart guy. People "mainstream Republicans" gave him crap for his 1992 "culture war" convention speech. Now, the premise of that speech is accepted by mosr Republicans. His books are brilliant. Mark Steyn's America Alone basically copied Pat's thesis in the Death of the West. His long held but unpopular postions on the trade, soveignty and immigration are all becoming more popular too. Pat was reamed by "mainstream Republicans" for questioning Rumsfeld and company's line on Iraq. Now, every Mainstream Republican running in 2008 is conceding that mistakes were made and the war was mismanaged.
Anyway, the historical point here is that treaty of Versailles after WWI was a joke. This is not a zero sum game. Hitler can be a maniac and the allies partioning and raping of Germany after WWI can still be wrong too. It was how we treated Germany after WWI that led to our efforts to rebuild Germany and Japan after WWII because we knew the cost of humiliating and raping a people after they lost a war. Germany's borders should never have been cut down to leave ethnic Germans and traditional German lands to another country. That was a recipe for disaster regarless of who rules Germany.
However, it's possible for someone to more or less accept your second paragraph (and to think that President Bush's comment didn't make historical sense), yet still believe that Buchanan is completely wrong. His position seems to be that had the British and French acquiesced and handed over Poland, then then he would've been satiated and WW2 in Europe would've been averted.
I think that he's self evidently wrong. Czechoslovakia proved that Hitler wasn't going to stop with annexing German lands, that he wanted more than an application of Wilsonian/Versailles national self determination principles to the Germans. Hitler was clearly out for conquest. It was clear in 1939, and it's even more crystal clear from our vantage point.
Had the Brits and French backed down over Danzig, Hitler probably would've then demanded all of Pommerania, then Luxemburg and Eupen-Malmedy, then Alto-Adige, then maybe German Switzerland, then maybe Wartheland, then maybe the Netherlands and Belgium, etc. Hitler and the Nazis wanted war, they wanted their Eastern European Lebensraum, and nothing was going to stop that. If it wasn't clear at the time of Munich, then it was certainly clear by mid-1939.
Maybe Versailles could've been amicably and justly re-negotiated (with German national self determination granted peacefully) if in 1939 it was governed by Gustav Streseman, Alfred Hugenberg, or Fran von Papen. However, Hitler & the Nazis wanted war, and they wanted to conquer non-German lands.
Pat's very, very wrong on this issue, and I respect him less and less any time he talks about it. I really wish that he hadn't written an entire book devoted to this garbage- it has severly decreased my estimation of the man.
Anyway, we should stop re-running the 1930s- it's fruitless and pointless.
Nobody, absolutely nobody, knew the Nazis were going to be as heinous are they became. Dictators and tyrants should not be appeased. I don't want to go there. But its hard to know what intelligence they had on the Hitler in those days. I'm Polish. I know what he did to my people. I understand your slippery slope argument. But I disagree that the Sudetenland was the only issue. Here's a map of pre-WWI Germany and post-WWI Germany.
http://www.schoolshistory.org.uk/ASLevel_History/week4_versailles.htm
The treaty of Versailles did rip out the Polish corridor from Germany. I'm not sur the ethnic makeup with respect to percentage of Prussians and Poles, but I know that area had long been regarded as East Prussia. Yes, Hitler was mas. But did we know that? And didn't the Germans have some legitimate gripes over Versailles. And didn't we have to look into righting some of those wrongs?
I'm not saying that the "Sudetenland was the only issue." I know a good deal about the aftermath of Versailles- Central European history in general (and German history in particular) is a hobby of mine. I think that the Germans got a raw deal in regards to getting blamed as the sole Agressor of WW1 and all that came with it, and, as is indicated in the OP, they're still getting a raw deal from that. (As I discussed in the other thread on this topic, Germany did not in and of itself "start" World War 1).
What I am saying, though, is that the invasion of Czechoslovakia was an undeniable red flag that Hitler should never again be trusted. He swore that he only wanted to annex German lands. He swore that he wouldn't invade Czchoslovakia if the Sudetenlands were attached to the Reich (coincidentally stripping Czechoslovakia of its main anti-German defenses). After the Munich agreement was signed and the Sudetenlands were given to the Reich, Hitler went back on his word and invaded Czechoslovakia. At that point, there was no further reason to negotiate with him. Intelligence files be damned- he couldn't have proven his untrustworthiness in a more open way.
Why, then, should anyone have trusted that he wouldn't invade Poland if given Danzig? He certainly would have wanted the rest of the Polish corridor next (which was roughly 60 - 40 Polish in 1914), and he would've eventually demanded it (if not outright invaded it anyway).
As I said before, Britain and France might have been able to peacefully arrange for an fully-realized Germany in the late 1930s had they had Germany been lead by a politcal party that actually valued peace. The Nazis were philosophically opposed to peace- they basically worshipped war, and they wanted to conquer non-German lands. Even if the Brits and French couldn't grasp that fact from a reading of Mein Kampf and from Triumph of the Will, they surely had to have recognized it after the invasion of Czechoslovakia.
What possible incentive did the Brits and French have to enter into another round of negotitations over Danzig in 1939, knowing full well that Hitler would take what he could get and then do what he wanted?
from reading Mein Kampf and watching Triumph of the Will.
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Small is beautiful.
You really ought to do a post on Germany from 1871 to 1945. Not sure exactly how that could be neatly tied into Red State, but you have had some really good stuff here over the past day.
NC
Why, then, should anyone have trusted that he wouldn't invade Poland if given Danzig? He certainly would have wanted the rest of the Polish corridor next (which was roughly 60 - 40 Polish in 1914), and he would've eventually demanded it (if not outright invaded it anyway).
My strong feeling is that Hitler would not have been satisfied with Danzig had the Poles capitulated. Hitler had much larger conceptions of people he didn't like than simply thinking they were stubborn about their territorial integrity. Of course, the price Poles paid for their resolve was very high: they subsequently became part of the large category of people classified as Untermenschen under the laws of the Reich. Hitler showed them, and lots of people in my extended family are dead because Hitler was so determined.
The Race and Settlement Head Office in 1942 distributed a pamphlet "The Sub-Human" to those responsible for that selection of which 3,860,995 copies were printed in German language. It was also translated into Greek, French, Dutch, Danish, Bulgarian, Hungarian and Czech and seven other languages. The pamphlet states the following:
The sub-human, that biologically seemingly complete similar creation of nature with hands, feet and a kind of brain, with eyes and a mouth, is nevertheless a completely different, dreadful creature. He is only a rough copy of a human being, with human-like facial traits but nonetheless morally and mentally lower than any animal. Within this creature there is a fearful chaos of wild, uninhibited passions, nameless destructiveness, the most primitive desires, the nakedest vulgarity. Sub-human, otherwise nothing. For all that bear a human face are not equal. Woe to him who forgets it.
I started off thinking I was just going to award the post a 5, but then decided to talk about the Untermenschen. People can gain a Wikipedia-level knowledge of what that meant by reading about it at -- Wikipedia.
In my family, one of the lessons from that experience still survives to this day as a maxim, loosely translated from Polish as:
"You cannot make a deal with the devil."
He knew almost precisely how bad Hitler was from the early 1930's on.
also, anyone who read "Mein Kampf" and took its author seriously, knew as well.
Bill Dupray at The Patriot Room
there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress
--AuH2O--
Those da*n Poles, they should have just listened to Adolf. Of course then, how would Buchanan blame the Illuminati Bankers and the Israel lobby for the failures of the Republican Party?
he trouble with our friend McCain isn't that he's ignorant, but that he knows so much that isn't so.
I hope you are wrong on the McCain stuff.
(1) Instead of itching to fight the Soviets, the Germans signed a Non-Agression Pact with the USSR in order to allow both to carve up Poland. This makes little sense if the USSR was the real target.
(2) Buchanon implies that Gdansk (a.k.a. Danzig) was historically German (e.g. had no real history of being part of Poland) and was thus just an another example of an overly punitive Versailles. The presence of Germans in Poland was a result of centuries of warfare as well as the fact that Poles pretty much let the Germans in Polish territory fairly. There was no reason for ethnic Germans to leave
(3) Under no circumstances did Hitler want an "alliance" with Poland. He viewed Poles as sub-humans to work as slaves or be exterminated, which is one of the reasons that concentration camps were built in Poland and not in Czech or Austria.
Hitler intended to expel, exterminate (and in a few select cases Germanize) Poles and Slavs from the lands to the east of Germany. Poland was just the first part of his plans to push east. The pact with the USSR was nothing more than an expedient measure while he took care of France and Britain in the West. There was never any question that Hitler was going to renege on the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, the question was just when it was going to occur.
NC
Maybe Pat has been drinking TOO much MSNBC Kool Aid.
Has he gone to the Dark Side? Just asking!!
http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=649
Some very good stuff here.
instead of "all-cocked"...
Starting a war over borders and territory is starting a war of aggression. That Buchanan would justify it or attempt to ameliorate it is simply breathtaking.
...while the Chinese were funding the killing of our soldiers. Ronald Reagan did likewise with Iran for purely political reasons.
Pat Buchanan is keenly of which faction of the party that is driving it off the Stupid Cliff into obscurity.
Which rogue mass murdering dictator did you talk to?
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Pop quiz: Which would you prefer now? A non-invaded Iraq with a Republican majority, or an inevitable Socialist takeover as a consequence of neocons being really bad at speculative foreign policy?
sure it is...couldn't be they spit on their base of support every time a larded pork bill comes up and they vote for it...nahhh...must be Iraq...which by the way you rarely hear about because....oh yeah we are winning.
Freedom of Religion NOT Freedom from Religion
Funny how Pork is all of a sudden the Worst Thing Ever, when it seemed like such a good idea when the GOP had the majority.
As for the GOP's standing regarding Iraq...run away. Fast.
obviously no Republican nor conservative or you would know that....troll! as for the GOP's standind regarding Iraq..I sir stand with them as a neocon...pffft...fly away now!
Freedom of Religion NOT Freedom from Religion
Funny how ad hominem tu quoque has become the weapon of choice since November, 2006. I see it, and I know I can call you 'troll' without fear of being surprised by a show of intelligence from you later.
And why run from Iraq? We won. The brass won't say it yet, but Bin Laden sure has.
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Gone 2500 years, still not PC.
Bin Laden gets to keep making his videos, Bush leaves as a lame duck. Thousands of our guys are dead, maimed or PTSD'd. The sum is that AQ has rediscovered their reason for being with renewed enthusiasm.
But if you mean that we now occupy an oil-rich country indefinitely, I guess you're right.
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I'd say the former, but it's hard to tell, sometimes.
Oh, well, we ban either way.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
Given today's technology, I would think it is entirely possible to criticize neocons for breaking with traditional conservatism in ways that are ultimately self-defeating.
Sad as it may seem, and knowing full well the proper definition of neocon, I find it lacking lately as a viable philosophy.
Given enough indulgence, it may even be remotely possible to not agree with "The Movement" without the slightest hint of anti-semitism or implied hatred of the fundamentals of conservatism.
YMMV. Then again, maybe continued liberal bashing in lieu of "new ideas" will work. Who knows.
Stranger things have happened.
Buchanon has made the ideologue's mistake. While I haven't read the book on Germany, from the reviews I've read of it the primary thesis is that the west can win wars of containment. He looks to the victory over the USSR and attempts to extend it forward to Iraq and Iran. In order to do so he also tries to extend the theory back in time and runs square into WWII and WWI. He applies the theory and cherry picks his facts to support the thesis to keep us out of nation building.
This is one of the reasons that if pushed, I classify myself as a paleocon instead of a neocon. If the theory is more important than the facts, you start having problems with reality. I too would like to avoid getting our nation caught up in the dilemma of nation building. Unfortunately the other dilemmas are worse.
I really, really do.
“.....women and minorities hardest hit”