British Expatriate Network

I found myself asking this question yesterday after I had read an article about the Russians and Eastern Europeans who were "repatriated" to the USSR at the end of World War II. I'd been talking with some folks who have Cossack swords they bought and collected from a warehouse in the former Soviet Union, where they had been stored since the end of World War II - their owners having been handed over to the NKVD/SMERSH and then executed once they were back on Soviet soil. Their swords and weapons were stored and untouched until they were sold for hard currency.

Anyway, the article raised the point that Britain and France declared war on Germany as a futile gesture to dissuade it from invading Poland. Their reasoning was that no Eastern European country should be forced to live under a dictatorial system and they could not reasonably stand by and allow this to happen.

We are brought up in the west (and particularly in USA) to believe that WWII was good against evil and we vanquished the evil-doers, yet in reality we allowed Eastern Europe to be overrun and dictated to by an equally tyrannical dictator who was no better than Adolf Hitler or his Nazi henchmen.

If you read your history books and look at the chain of events in 1939, the correct, principled response to the invasion of Poland should have been a declaration of war by France and Great Britain against not only Germany but the USSR as well, who invaded Poland shortly afterwards.

The end results seems to suggest we could have just left Hitler to it, sadly.

I think Nazi Germany needed to be defeated first and foremost but the sad part is afterwards when Churchill and Roosevelt sold out Poland to Stalin. Poland suffered in the war more than any other ally besides perhaps Russia. Poland also gave so much and helped the allies in so many ways to defeat Germany. They should have been included in the process and Stalin should not have been encouraged to "take" parts of Europe as Soviet puppet states. Maybe the cold war could have been avoided. I don't know.

Another thought is that while it is true to say that the United States and the former Soviet Union "won" World War II (US standard of living rose by incredible amounts following WWII and USSR gained new lands and influence), the same cannot really be said for Great Britain, despite its many sacrifices.

It seems a very hollow victory on reflection - the Empire was mostly removed during or shortly after the war, the country suffered bomb damage and lost thousands of men who were replaced by bringing in immigrants from the Dominions (perhaps before the country was ready to fully embrace this help). In addition, Great Britain went virtually bankrupt, especially when the United States stopped propping it up at the end of the war.

I know my parents used to be a bit numb when they travelled around Germany in the 1960's and saw how it had received a lot of investment and rebuilding after World War II, whereas their country of birth which was supposedly a "winner" still seemed to be lagging well behind and still trying to recover years later.

I now wonder what would have happened to Great Britain if it had not bothered with World War II at all and left Europe to Hitler. I suspect Germany would have only fought in the east, defeated the USSR handily after taking Poland and spent the next fifty or so years redesigning Eastern Europe in its own image. After that - who knows?

Yes,we had no choice.

Hitler leaving the UK alone after he had beaten Russia~No way in Hell.

Hitler's order No9(?) after he invaded and taken over the UK was "All UK males between the ages of 17 an 45 to be shipped to Germany " Slave labor ,concentration camps you name it.Most on this Forum would probably be Lampshades or bars of soap by now ~ thats if the Germans had allowed us to live.

This is why I will never understand Ireland being neutral they also would have got the chop from Hitler(de valera used to send birthday greetings to Hitler).

Marshall Aid given to the Europe by the USA was stopped from going to the UK when we voted in Labour, no way would he,Trueman, help those socialist scoundrels!!!!

Germany has always been better organized than the UK.

Those countries that remained neutral and the some of them on the Allied side made trillions of $$ during that war. The UK,Russia France were cleaned out.

That's not necessarily true though.

Hitler did not want war with Britain - although he considered us weaker than Germany, he had a certain respect and was not very confident that his forces would beat Britain in naval engagements. His blitzkrieg tactics were fine on land but useless when he had to throw crossing the channel into the mix.

If you look at comments made by Guenther Blumentritt or General Franz Halder, they bear out the fact that Hitler was not really interested in invading England in 1940 and was hopeful that he would batter it into compliance with the air raids that continued after Operation Sealion was abandoned. In fact, he spoke openly to those around him in the continuance of the British Empire and even mused about lending his troops to Britain if they needed help in the Empire, which he was not interested in. Later, he appears to have modified his strategy to try to sieze Malta, Gibralter and the Suez Canal because it was supposed that taking these from Britain would end their resistance and this sets the scene for the Afrika Korps battles in North Africa.

Hitler's Directive 16 of July 16th, 1940 states:

As England, despite her hopeless military situation, still shows no sign of willingness to come to terms, I have decided to prepare, and if necessary to carry out, a landing operation against her.

The aim of this operation is to eliminate the English motherland as a base from which war against Germany can be continued and, if necessary, to occupy completely.

This suggests that occupation was not necessarily the aim but if it had to happen, then so be it.

Still, looking at the deporations of Channel Islanders, perhaps Hitler had lost his respect for Britain by the early 1940's - this seems to bear out the mention you make of an order to remove men for forced labour although it might be argued that had the war in the East gone better, he would have had plenty of labour from there or simply not needed to take British men to work in Europe.

I remember my grandfather (mother's side) used to say that Germany had won the war not because of their prosperity in the 50s but because nobody was supposed to blame the German populace.

My grandparents were Welsh, and like many whom didn't live in southern England really didn't like Churchill. My grandfather was in the navy and fought in the Pacific (I think) and my grandmother was sent to work in Bridgend in South Wales to help the war effort. She used to say that even during the war if Churchill's name was mentioned people would spit on the ground. For them and many other poor rural welsh people the war was extremely hard and din't seem worth it. I cannot imagine the context of being told that Britain has a very special relationship with Poland so must act early to declare war on Germany.

I do think you have a point there though Pilgrim. Surely one of two things would have happened - Germany would have run out of steam very very quickly. Or Stalin would have torn up Molotov/Ribbentrop and pushed back. I really do wonder what have happened if the second occured - it's not too far a stretch to think that Germany and Britain may have begun the whole affair on the same side.

Interstingly, the Cossacks who I mentioned in my earlier post and who fought for the Germans surrendered to the British in Austria because they honestly thought the British would fight the Communists and they wanted to lend a hand.

I'm certainly not trying to downplay the sacrifices made on all sides or say that the Germans were not bad but having researched this over the past few days, I'm not convinced that the victory was worth it for the original reasons the war was started, although from the point of view of say occupied countries or the Jews, I would say that it was an absolute necessity.

Now I wonder how many wars start out with one aim and then have the aims shift through the war - something we are experiencing today.

I was 15 when the war ended and had worked as a machinist for almost a year. I don't remember anyone disliking Churchill until after the war when we had the first election.

Without his leadership and ability to inspire, I'm not sure that we would have won. He also was able to influence the Americans due to his politics and connections. I don't remember any other politician that could have done it.

As to having it hard. In 1939 we were coming out of one of the biggest depressions in history. The war changed all that. Even under rationing more people could afford to live better. A friend of mine went to work in the mines in Wales and ended up staying there.

I lost a brother in Italy in 1944. Was it worth it? We shall never know for sure.

What a great thread, I've been watching it with avid interest. Of course, we can never know whether it was worth it or not, unless we can get a look into some of the parallel universes.

As Germany gained power and prepared for war, Poland was worried because of the large areas that were both German and Polish and were currently under PolishControl. France was worried for obvious reasons. Britain didn't want to be isolated. Poland, France and UK signed a mutual defense pact, figuring that the prospect of symmultaneously having to fight all three would stop Hitler. Russia was not a threat to UK or France at that time and for them to even think of attacking Russia was proposterous.

I realise that Hitler didn't want war with Britain at that time, but I think it was inevitable once Japan attacked the USA. Even If Japan hadn't entered the war, Hitler would have wanted to expand Germany's influence in Africa, would have wanted the former German colonies back.

The Cossacks were, I believe, from part of the Ukraine. They joined with Hitler, after he attacked Russia, because he was their enemy's enemy.There were others who would have joined him for the same reason but he didn't trust them.

I was posted in Germany in 1957/58 and Germans were very happy to remind us that we went to war with them not they with us.

Churchill was Home Secretary in the late twenties and early thirties and called out the troops to break the strikers in 1926. I copied the next italicised text from Wikipedia:

"During the General Strike of 1926, Churchill was reported to have suggested that machineguns be used on the striking miners. Churchill edited the Government's newspaper, the British Gazette, and during the dispute he argued that "either the country will break the General Strike, or the General Strike will break the country." Furthermore, he was to controversially claim that the Fascism of Benito Mussolini had "rendered a service to the whole world," showing as it had "a way to combat subversive forces" – that is, he considered the regime to be a bulwark against the perceived threat of Communist revolution."

This is as I remember it from earlier research, but Wiki puts it better than I can. It explains why he was hated by the working classes even though they recognised him as a great war leader. He had a low opinion of the working class; this next is also from Wikipedia:

"Although the importance of Churchill's role in World War II was undeniable, he had many enemies in his own country. His expressed contempt for a number of popular ideas, in particular public health care and better education for the majority of the population, produced much dissatisfaction amongst the population, particularly those who had fought in the war."

Voting the Labour party in, cost us the support of Harry Truman, in those days, Socialism = Communism in the USA.

How is this different to after WWI except for the control pf German land gained by the allies afterwards? Germany was very comfortable afer WWI until the US didn't like their socialism ideas and so stopped propping them up financially.

You know, you could look at this another way and go with "would WWII have happened in the first place if the US hadn't have pulled out its monetary help to Germany just as Hitler came into politics"?

Just a thought :)

An interesting thesis but as WW II was too far from my frame of reference there’s not much I can add to the speculation.

It is true that Britain was left in a very bad position financially one that caused a residual effect until the late 1980s or early 1990s.

On the flipside the bad position that Britain faced could have been said to have precipitated the quicker withdrawal from our colonies, but I rather put that down to the more ethical viewpoint of Attlee’s government.

neutral read something very interesting a couple of weeks back about way Britian and france done nothing about Germany prior to the invasion of Poland. According to the information we Considered Russia, Starlin and the raise of the communist's a greater threat. After all we and the americans sent troops to support the white russian troops. It was hoped that Hitler would really just turn his attention towards Russia and deal with Starlin before he headed anywhere else. After all the creation of a master race was something not only Germany was looking to do, but so did the US, with the compulsory Sterilization of various groups in society.
Was it worth it. you have to say yes, just to get the Evil sh*t out. Did it turn out right.
Not really, we still have not learned from History.
Could Hilter been stopped sooner, yes and if we done so, we could have dealt with Russia sooner and maybe the cold war would have never happened........

But the world is full of buts and what if's

As I mentioned before though, Guenther Blumentritt, one of Hitler's Generals, stated categorically that Hitler was not that interested in an Empire outside of Europe:

"He said that all he wanted from Britain was that she should acknowledge Germany's position on the Continent. The return of Germany's lost colonies would be desirable but not essential, and he would even offer to support Britain with troops if she should be involved in any difficulties anywhere. He remarked that the colonies were primarily a matter of prestige, since they could not be held in war, and few Germans could settle in the tropics.

He concluded by saying that his aim was to make peace with Britain on a basis that she would regard as compatible with her honour to accept."

When all is said and done taking a long term view at the time made it worth while depending on a few if's and but's. Let’s look at the only taking Europe thing, now if was that true and made the UK safe would that be the same if the US was still to tangle with the expanding German state? The axis took allot of islands for strategic gain and the UK would have been no different in my mind and only a matter of time. Look to Iraq and kicking them out of Kuwait, given the land the resources he would have not stopped there Iran was always a target and them what with all that land, resources and power?

I don’t believe there was an ideal of stopping evil at the time but we saw the signs of a long term threat to their way of life from the Russians and Germans and something had to give. WWII could really have not been worth it had Japan not dragged in the US as we would have lost to Germany and calling their bluff with the early alliances would have proved to be a big mistake. Having said that I disagree with the view Germany would have stopped given the adopted ideal of the Master Race, it relates very much to the current Islamic issues we all face in my mind.

All in all was WWII worth it? I consider it as we had no choice so that makes the question moot for me, but that’s not to say how it all started played out in an ideal way and looking back there were better ways and choices that could have been made. Guess that is what’s makes our history so interesting, if you can’t agree on the lessons from history how indeed can you learn from it?

Are you serious? that is what Hitler had planned? Where did you get that info?