World War I, Jewish War Profiteers How Britain Initiated Both World Wars, Kollerstrom It’s A Trap! The Wave Of Repercussions As The Middle East Fights “The Last War” The Jewish Hand in the World Wars, Part 1 The Jewish Hand in the World Wars, Part 2

Revisionist

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HOW BRITAIN INITIATED BOTH WORLD WARS

Transcription of a talk given to the London 9/11Keeptalking Group on March 3rd. 2016

by Nick Kollerstrom, PhD

Contents

Chapter 1 World War One Chapter 2 World War Two

Part One –  World war one

I LIGHT-HEARTEDLY GAVE this topic to Ian last summer, "How Britain initiated both world wars" and he's been going on since about me doing it, so I could not back out now ... We have done the idea of First World War initiation before[1], and will be recalling that. This isn't about the history of the wars, it isn't about who are the good guys guy s and who are the bad b ad guys, it is the concept of initiating a world war - a very extraordinary concept concep t - and who wanted it, who wanted it to happen. We do not accept that it just happened by itself, and I will try and argue that a will to war-initiation came from this country, and not some other country. Let's start off in the months coming up to the First World War, May of 1914, when an American statesman reported back to America after a tour o f Europe. He said, “The situation is extraordinary, jingoism run stark mad” - he was talking about the instability of the European nations - there was no way of o f avoiding this awful cataclysm, no-one in Europe can do it, it's locked into too many jealousies, and “… whenever England consents, France and Russia Russia will [2] close in on Germany and Austria.”  [See slide 2, on page 27]  Now that is a very good summary of what happened, France and Russia would 'close in.' Let's have a look at the map here, how Austria-Hungary was about to be 'closed in' by Russia and

France. [slide 3] Those were two nations which both wanted war -they believed they had territories they could only get back from Germany by war. The other nation that wanted war was Serbia, but  not  not with Germany - it wanted war with Austria, because it had dreams of a greater  Serbia, and it believed that war was a way of getting this, and it believed that, although it was smaller, Russia would support it. So those were the countries that actually wanted war, and the situation was, that Russia would never have dared to go to war with Germany, unless it believed that France was supporting it, and France wouldn't have dared to support Russia in war against Germany, unless it believed that Britain was supporting it. Britain had as such no motive for going to war with Germany, unlike France or Russia. So the Question is, did Britain want to do it? Did it initiate this situation, this cataclysm? It all depended on a French-English Entente which was secretive. This was woven from about 1905 onwards: a deal that if war broke out, France - which had been for centuries the traditional enemy of Britain - if war broke out, we would support France. Edward Grey secretly assured Poincarè that Britain would support France and Russia as an obligation of honour, if war broke out.[3] It was supposed to be a defensive alliance, but as this excellent book makes clear, Hidden clear, Hidden  History, Secret Origins of the First World World War  by  by Docherty & McGregor, it was really functioning as an offensive war-generating alliance [4]. This is the best book on the subject. Bertrand Russell recalled how he was shocked by how happy people seemed to be, when war  was declared, around the beginning of August[4]. Also, he always noticed how carefully Edward Grey concealed what he was doing [5] as he secretly committed us to war. The Government and the Cabinet and the people pe ople didn't realise this. We have here the concept of a secret elite: is it  possible that a secret elite can drag this country into war? Belgium was founded on a treaty of perpetual neutrality, which was supposed to guarantee that it would not take sides in a European war, but actually it had been making detailed war-plans with Britain in the event of war breaking out. Such things as stockpiles of cannon balls of the British standard not French, and coats co ats for the soldiers, were found in Belgium, and when the Germans invaded Belgium they found agreements a greements with Britain in the Belgian palace of go vernment.[5] So Belgium was actually not neutral at all. There was a deal for the hundred thousand British soldiers to be transported across to France a nd Belgium immediately when war broke out. Detailed plans had been made. So this meant that Germany realised that it was surrounded by not three but four hostile nations - it was totally surrounded. This was the terrific deep fear and panic that built up and couldn't c ouldn't really be resolved. Who was the Kaiser, Kaiser Wilhelm? He had quite a reputation as a peacemaker in Europe here is the New the New York Times’ Times’ judgment, made a year before, June 1913. [7] 'Now he is acclaimed everywhere as the greatest factor for peace that our time can show. It was he, again and again, who threw the weight of his personality into the balance for peace, whenever whene ver war-clouds gathered over Europe.” That is quite fulsome praise. I would describe him as a wise peacemaker. Let's have another verdict, by a former US president, just before the war broke out: “…the

critically important part which has been his among the nations, he has been for the last quarter of  a century, the single greatest force in the practical maintenance of peace in the world.” There was a BBC program, a centenary tribute to him which talked about his love of England and his deep attachment to Queen Victoria: the two Royal families shared the same ancestry with Queen Victoria. In twenty-five years on the throne, he'd never gone to war and the German army hadn't fought a  battle in nearly half a century. So it’s reasonable to say that this was quite a pacific nation, whereas Britain and America had been to war quite a lot. He had a certain confidence in being able to use the strength of Germany to resolve issues of war and peace in Europe. If I may give you one more quote, from a very influential American statesman, Colonel House, he wrote a letter after visiting in July 1914, just before the war broke out. His letter to the Kaiser after his tour of Europe [10] recalled the wonderful wonde rful conversations they had together: about how he the Kaiser had wanted to bring about a better understanding between the great powers: "because of  your well-known desire to maintain peace, I came as your Majesty knows directly to Berlin. I can never forget the gracious acceptance ac ceptance of the general purposes of o f my mission, the masterly exposition of the world-wide political conditions as they exist today, and the prophetic forecast for the future.” And he felt confident: "I live happy in the belief that your y our majesty's great influence was thrown on behalf of peace and the broadening of the world's commerce.” So we have had several judgments of the Kaiser, of him understanding how - if anyone could maintain peace in Europe - how it could be done. And then we get, just before the cataclysm, a friendly visit of the British Royal Navy to Germany. The new Dreadnoughts came to Kiel Harbour, and the Kaiser inspects a British ship wearing a British admiral uniform, to stress his connection with the British royal family. So we wonder, how on earth could cataclysmic war break out, under these circumstances,  between two nations that had been friendly for a thousand years? The assassination came at the end of June of the Austrian Arch-Duke, and it takes a while before anything happened then. All the Serbian newspapers were rejoicing at this assassination, so Austria has to respond. The problem leading to both world wars, was that the geographical definition of Germany is smaller than the extent of the Germanic people. pe ople. People who feel they are German, are wider than the boundary of what is fixed as Germany in 1871. For the first World War, that very much applies to Austria. The ruling family of Germany, since Mediaeva l times had been in Austria the Habsburgs - and so there was a deep connection of Austria and Germany. Austria wanted to  be part of Germany but wasn't allowed to: so this was in a sense what dragged Germany into the First World war. Let's look at the development of the cataclysm, the sequence. Austria gives a severe ultimatum to Serbia, a ten-point ultimatum, what it’s got to do - and, to everyone's surprise, Serbia nearly accepts them all, nine out of ten. But Austria is still angry, it was '"You've got to accept them all." The Kaiser insists: "This is capitulation, of the most humiliating sort, with it disappears every reason for war - every cause ca use for war now falls to the ground". He tells Austria to accept that Serbian acquiescence. But he does not succeed in stopping - things happen too quickly now -

he doesn't succeed in stopping Austria from shelling Belgrade in Serbia on 28th July. One historian reckoned that they did it right away because they reckoned that, if they waited any longer, the Kaiser would have stopped them.[6] They were furious with Serbia and wanted to start shelling. The cataclysm begins, and the Kaiser angrily says, “Stop in Belgrade!" – that, this must not happen. He explains exp lains very clearly what has to happen now: this is the third time the Austrian army has been mobilized, so one has to do something - you can't just tell them to stand down. So he says, let the Austrian army go into Serbia and stand there and do nothing else. Just occupy  part of Serbia, until the attempt to ascertain who did the assassination assassination has been carried out satisfactorily, and then come back. No war - don't kill anybody, the army just goes in and stays there, it’s a show of strength. He says: "On this basis, I'm prepared to mediate for peace". [13] And I think you'll yo u'll find that Grey said something rather similar. So, if there was time - if  we  we had time - that would have been the  peace formula. Which was what the Kaiser kind of assumed was going to happen, how to de-fuse it. However, someone else on the scene had a different agenda. There's a long-predicted war agenda coming up, with Churchill in charge of the British navy, and the British navy has just been displayed to the King on the 26th of July. On his own initiative, he sends up - this is the largest fleet in the world - he sends it up u p to Scapa Flow north of o f Scotland, right outside Germany - and then, as the Kaiser said in his memoirs, he knew then that the war was coming. That's about the 28th of July: he knew that, once the British fleet is up there, that is the signal to all the warmongers in Europe - this is it, it’s going to happe n. The world's biggest navy cannot canno t be sent up there without anything happening.

Churchill: the First Sea-Lord We note the psychology of Winston Churchill, the terrific happiness he felt as the war was approaching. All the other Cabinet members, the Liberals, they are all ashen-faced and despairing, with all the principles they have worked for all their life ... peace ... going out the window, as they are dragged into horrible war. Whereas Churchill was exultant, and he wrote to his wife Clementine, "My Darling, everything tends towards catastrophe and collapse, but I am

geared up and happy, is it not horrible to be built like that?" To someone else, a year later, he says, "Why, I would not be out of this glorious, delicious war for anything the world could give me." He gets a terrific thrill from managing it, moving the ships around and managing the war. [15] He loves war more than anything else, more even than brandy, or the sound of his own voice - he loves the war, and he gets on with it. You'll find omitted, in a lot of WW1 books, book s, the fact that the entire Royal Navy was sent up  North, by Churchill's own initiative. How amazing is that? This is not the the Prime Minister. This is the decisive war-initiating act. When we come to the Second World War, you'll find him as Prime Minister ringing up Bomber Command, on his own initiative, without having to tell anyone else. On his own initiative, he can send the fleet right up to its wartime base, in full  battle-readiness. The whole of Europe was in a condition of fear, and there was the horrible argument that the war is going to happen anyway, so one might as well be first. The Rothchilds have to come into this story somewhere, don't they? Nathaniel Rothschild visits Prime Minister Asquith to advise him of the preparations that the bank had put into place, to  prepare for war.[17] This is late in July, and the meeting is 'to prepare for war,' war,' to make sure that the Prime Minister has got the money and bank reserves available. There is the 'secret elite' Grey, Asquith, Haldane and Churchill - these are people who are preparing for the coming war they have said that it's going to happen, and how are they going to manage it? Parliament doesn't know a thing about this. The great modern Revisionist, Henry Elmer Barnes, wrote in the 1950s - see the Barnes the Barnes Review in memory of his work – he was a wonderful pioneer of modern Revisionism. What he called: "The moment when the horrors ho rrors of war were specifically unchained in Europe" [18] - he puts on the 29th July, when Poincarè and Izvolski - these were the ministers of defence of France and Russia - met together, to finalise that they were going to war. The Czar of Russia doesn't doe sn't quite know about this, he is very feeble, he keeps trying to tell the Kaiser that he isn't going to war, but he doesn't have the strength to resist it.  Hidden History says, History says, the War was “deliberately and wilfully begun by Sazonov, Poincarè and Sir  Edward Grey, at the bequest of the Secret Elite in London” [18] - I'm defending that thesis here, that they would not have had the nerve to do d o it without the Secret Elite in London telling them to do it. Here is a great Revisionist masterpiece, which should be on all your shelves really, by Patrick Buchanan, the wise American: Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War , and this is the one mainstream book which Revisionists like and approve of. It’s been a best-seller. Here is what he says: “By secretly committing Britain to war for France, these three - Grey, Churchill and Asquith - left the Kaiser in the dark, da rk, unaware that a war with France meant war with the British Empire.” He had not been told that. The German plan was to go quickly into France, beat France, and then fight Russia, because it couldn't fight the two of them together. That Th at was the Schlieffen Plan. They weren't sure whether  Britain would come in too - if Britain had said, yes we will come in too, then nothing would have happened - that would have stopped it from happening. Thereby the European war was turned into a world War. There was a conflict going on in Eastern Europe, between Serbia and Austria,

one backed by Russia and the other backed by Germany, and that was a local conflict, and the Kaiser was hoping to keep it local. But once the British fleet appeared on the Western coast of  Germany, the Kaiser realized that this wasn't a local conflict, it was a conflict that didn't have any meaning other than Germany being done in. Britain had a choice here: there was as it were nothing impelling Britain to do this - I think that's very important. On the 30th July, the Kaiser was still desperately telegramming the Czar, imploring him to stop mobilization. A million Russian troops had been mobilized, and there's a lot of debate, did mobilisation mean war? Well it makes it pretty damn likely. And he's begging him not to mobilize any more. "Serious preparations for war on my Eastern frontier. In my endeavours to maintain the peace of the world, I have gone to the utmost limit possible." [20] Germany was the last country to mobilise in Europe - if anyone tells you Germany started this war, the other  countries all mobilised before Germany did.[7] "The responsibility for the disaster which now threatens the whole civilized world will not be laid at my door. In this moment it still lies in your   power to avert it," he is saying to the Czar - which is technically quite true. "My friendship for  for  you and your empire, transmitted to me by my Grandfather on his deathbed, has always been sacred to me, and I have always honestly backed up Russia when she was in serious trouble." So he's reminding how he'd helped Russia in the past. "The peace of Europe may still be maintained  by you" - if he [the Czar] could stop the military build-up. He's still believing that he can maintain the peace of Europe. This is right at the end of July. The timetable of the disaster [21] shows how Russia is mobilising right at the e nd of July: the Kaiser sends his telegram to the Czar, and around the end of July we get the irrevocable French decision to support Russia, that is shown in [French] telegrams, which can be documented. France was kind of pretending, it kept its troops ten miles from the border, it was trying to tell Britain that it wasn't going to war, that it wasn't committed, but I think documents show that it was. On the first of August we get a vital conversation of the German ambassador Lichnovsky with Grey in London. This is as it were the last attempt by the Kaiser to get a peace deal with Britain. All the Cabinet except Grey and Churchill are in favor of total neutrality, that if war breaks out Britain does not come in. In a way, you could say that the war came because Britain didn't make its position clear: if it had clearly said, No we're not coming into the war, then France and Russia would not have gone into it. So it was the ambivalence of Britain which kind of led to this disaster. Right at the end of July Kaiser Wilhelm writes in despair in his diary - he realises he's trapped, he realises he cannot stop the war, there's nothing he can do: "The most frightful war, of which the ultimate aim is the overthrow of Germany" - so it’s not a question of maintaining peace  between Serbia and Austria, it’s a war against Germany. because people want to do in Germany. in Germany. In a way, it hasn't got a rational purpose, that's the terrible thing, that's why diplomats couldn't resolve it. "I no longer have any doubt, that England, Russia and France have agreed amongst themselves, knowing that our treaty obligations compel us to support Austria, to use the AustriaSerb conflict as a pretext for waging a war of annihilation against us.” He alludes to, "A purely

anti-German policy which England has been scornfully pursuing" - Germany can't escape from it. [22] Grey is very duplicitous - he's an honest-sounding ho nest-sounding fellow, and he had a terrific reputation as Britain's Foreign Secretary, but he had this duplicitous role. Here's the writer H.G. Wells making his final judgment: "I think Grey wanted the war, and I think he wanted it to come when it did." The great paradox is, that everyone in Europe after the war said, We didn't want it, no, we did our best to avoid it. So you've got, nine million people die, then everybody in Europe says they didn't want it - afterwards. “The charge is, that he did not definitely warn Germany, that we would certainly come into the war. He was sufficiently ambiguous, to let them take the risk, and he did this deliberately." That is a final judg ment of H.G.Wells, which I think is pretty sound. August 1st, people begin to realise, suddenly, of some disaster impending, that someone's going to pull us into this war, of which we've had no notice. The Daily The Daily News says, News says, "The greatest calamity in our history is upon us. At this moment our fate is being sealed by hands we know not, by motives alien to our interests, and by influences which, if we knew, we would certainly repudiate.” [24] How true! That sums up the way in which hidden forces made the deal, that  pulled Britain into war. There is a very good author, Morel, Truth and the War , and he referred to "Those dreadful fields of senseless carnage" as the soldiers were fighting each other on the fields of Flanders. We were fighting a country which had never ever threatened us in our entire history, and the flower of  British youth was dying there. And what the hell was it for? As Morel so clearly said of the alliance with France: "While negative assurances had been given to the House of Commons,  positive assurances diametrically opposed had been concocted by the War Office and the Admiralty. All the obligations of an alliance had been incurred by dangerous and an d subtle methods, in such a way as to leave the Cabinet free to deny d eny its existence." Here is Albion speaking with a double tongue! It's a two-forked language, whereby Parliament was constantly being told, we have no obligation for war - no of course not - but actually, detailed war-plans have been made, all ready to be activated – which very soon happened. Another good book is How is How the War Came by Came by Lord Loreburn (1919). Let me say, there is virtually no modern book on this subject which I recommend, except for the Hidden the Hidden History which has come out recently. These are old, Revisionist classics which I'm recommending here, which manage to, I think, get the ambiguity of what really happened. "Edward Gray slipped into a new policy, but without either Army, or treaty, or warrant of parliamentary approval. This country has a right to know its own obligations, and when the most momentous decision of our  whole history had to be taken, taken , we were not free to decide… de cide… A war to which were committed  beforehand in the dark..." [26] Parliament was only told on the 3rd! Parliament first heard about the coming war, by means of a stirring speech by Edward Grey on August 3rd and then - no questions, no discussion! No discussion! Does it remind you of the Iraq war, or what? Parliament is suddenly given this emotionally traumatic announcement: because of  an invasion of Belgium that has not yet happened , that is due to happen, we've got to go, we have to start a war, quickly! After giving his masterly talk, Grey then walks out - No sorry, we can't

discuss the matter. And that was the way of informing the country and parliament, by that speech. So, as Lord Loreburn says here, "Parliament found itself at two hours’ notice, unab le, had it so desired, to extricate itself from this fearful predicament.”[8] Belgium was invaded the next day on the 4th, so the talk was in anticipation of  this  this event. I came to this story in my youth, reading the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner, who ha d been giving talks in December, 1916. So S o I heard the German point of view, it was the only time I'd ever heard a German point of view concerning the War. And that was terribly moving, because December 1916 was when Germany had offered a peace deal to Britain, which was being declined. Germany said, Look, whatever whateve r the point of this war is, can we just stop? Can we just go home, and be friends again? It’s called Status quo ante ante - and even the American government encouraged this, they said, It’s a good peace deal, why doesn't Europe stop fighting? But no, we had to go on, because .. well, why? Let's not go into why, I'm sure we all have our own views, as to why Britain could not accept the peace deal. I remind you that we are only concerned with the initiation of war - who wanted  who wanted  to  to start the war? That's all we are looking at today. today . Steiner made the very outrageous outrageou s statement, that "With a single sentence, this war in the West would not have taken place:" that, if Grey had given a straight answer to Lichnovsky, then we could have avoided the catastrophe that took place. Here is the event which is missed out from just about every book on WW1. Any book you've got on your shelf, have a look at it and it won't have this event, on the first of August – but  it  it cannot be written out of history, because Grey sent off a letter that same afternoon, saying exactly what you read here - and it went into the British White Book, the record of war documents.[9] It’s in there, you can read it.  No one can deny that Grey summarized the meeting in this way: "Lichnovski asked me whether, if Germany gave a promise not to violate Belgian neutrality, we would engage to remain neutral." Huh, what more do you want? "I replied that we could not say that, our hands must be free." No commitment - even though the British fleet has gone up North - no commitment! So, "We could not give a promise on that condition alone". That is an amazing, staggering offer that Lichnovsky makes, to avoid war with Britain. And, he then asks a further question: “he then  pressed me on what conditions, on which we would remain neutral” - any conditions, on which Britain would remain neutral. “He even sugge sted the integrity of France and her colonies might  be guaranteed.” Well, what more do you want? Not only did Grey refuse to reply, but - get this he didn't mention this interview to Parliament. When he gave his speech he made no mention of  the fact that this interview with the German ambassador had taken place just before. And he tried to pretend that he thought it was just a personal meeting. This was the final attempt by the Kaiser, and there is a story that he heard the news back from Lichnovsky, and he misunderstood it. He thought there was a deal made mad e - this is late afternoon of  the 1st of August - he said, let's open op en a bottle of champagne, or something, there's some hope. And he thought there was some sort of agreement. And he told von Moltke, head of his military Stop! The troops were already going towards the Belgian border, and he said, stop them! And von Moltke said, We can't do that, that is impossible. Von Moltke was totally traumatized that

day. Then later the King of England contacted the Kaiser and told him, no there had been no agreement, it was a misunderstanding.[10] And that was as it were the end of the Kaiser's role in the war, and basically the end of the German royal family, it was the last royal d ynasty. He didn't really play any further role in the war once his final struggle to avoid war had h ad been defeated and outwitted. He'd been outwitted by the British, by this clever double entendre of, entendre of, will we / won't we. Various people on the Continent have discussed and evaluated that meeting - not in Britain of  course, you won't find any historians discussing that meeting on August 1st in any British college, it just gets deleted from the books, except for this one recently[11], this is the only one that has it. "Prince Lichnovsky asked if Britain would agree to remain neutral if Germany refrained from violating German neutrality. Sir Edward Grey refused. Would he agree if Germany was to guarantee the integrity of both France and her colonies? No." [29] Now, No w, that is a fair summary of  what Germany asked, as a way of avoiding the war. So if there had been a will to avoid the war, can we agree that that is the last possible date on which an answer could have been given that could have avoided the war? Nine million people need not have died, if Grey had given a straight answer: 'Yes that sounds like a great deal, let's shake on it.' That was the last possible moment on which the catastrophe could have been avoided, which extinguished all the bright hopes and optimism of European civilization. Here is a nice simple summary of the enigma, e nigma, which a US President gave, years later, when the war was all over: "We know for a certainty that, if Germany had thought for a moment that Great Britain would go in with France and Russia, she would never have undertaken the enterprise.” [30] Now you should all appreciate, the enterprise here was the Schlieffen Plan - that if you are threatened by attack from Russia, which Germany was, you go into France, beat France, and then you can take on Russia - which sounds sort of horrific now, but that was the plan. It was a defensive plan, the only one they had. So, going into Belgium was Germany's defensive war plan. This is what one might call an early conspiracy-theory view, of what caused the war, that the  people visible in Britain, namely Churchill and Grey and Asquith, who were making the war  happen, were puppets., and behind them was an influential group. Rudolf Steiner said that this war was not wanted by people in Germany, there was not a force for war in Germany, that would  be unthinkable.[12] Germany wanted cultural growth and trade. He said: "Behind those who were in a way the puppets, there stood in England a powerful and influential group of people, who  pushed matters doggedly towards a war with Germany, and through whom the way was paved for the World War that had always been prophesied. How powerful was the group, who like an outpost of mighty impulses stood before the puppets in the foreground. These latter are perfectly honest people, yet they are a re puppets, and now they will vanish into obscurity." He is saying that  people, who we might nowadays call the international bankers, or the Illuminati or freemasons or  whatever, were behind these public figures. Reply to floor comment: The Kaiser desperately wanted a friendship friendship deal with Britain, Britain, where Germany was the main land-power and Britain rules the waves: couldn't there be some peace deal between them? He was very baffled that it couldn't be, and it couldn't be

 because of what we may call the Churchillian doctrine, that Britain always had to oppose the strongest power in Europe: an everlasting-war policy. That was the grounds on which Britain said, no we can't have a deal of security and peace with Germany. So tragically that couldn't happen. We're on the 3rd of August now, n ow, and this is the day when whe n Grey makes his speech to the Commons, on the grounds of Germany going into Belgium. Germany had politely asked Belgium if it could go through into France - a gentleman here [in the audience] says it was an invasion of Belgium, but there were legal precedents, of Britain asking permission to go through a country, to go to war - on being asked that, Belgium immediately contacted the British government to say it had been be en asked by Germany if it could c ould go through, and it was all-important for Britain that Belgium said, No, you cannot canno t go through, as that was going to be the grounds on which Britain could declare war. Here is what Bernard Shaw said: "The violation of Belgian neutrality by the Germans was the mainstay of our righteousness. I guessed that, when the German account of our dealings with Belgium reached the United States, it would b e found that our own account of the neutrality of Belgium was as little compatible with neutrality as the German invasion[13]."[33] We did not have a very righteous position in alluding to the [Belgian] Treaty of Perpetual  Neutrality, because as mentioned Britain had already violated it. Britain’s Prime Prime Minister  Asquith made a speech explaining why Britain had entered the war (on August 6th) based on the lie that that that treaty obliged us to come c ome to the rescue of Belgium. That Tha t Treaty had no clause whatever obliging countries to come to the defence of Belgium if it was invaded. If I may quote again from Hidden from Hidden History: History: "Germany offered Belgium friendly neutrality, if a safe passage

35 US poster, The Phantom Menace

could be allowed, because in its defence against France it had to have passage across Belgium." [34] There were precedents: in the Boer war British troops were permitted passage across neutral Portuguese territory, to fight in South Africa, so this was regarded a s having a legal precedent. It isn't just an invasion - though in a sense, because Belgium said no, there was fighting. What we may call the ‘Phantom Menace’ appears here as a horrific h orrific image of Germany, as if it were liable to come up onto on to the shores of America – atrocity propaganda for America, "Destroy this mad brute!" Massive lies were created by Britain's Ministry of Information, and it was found after the war that none of it had been true. Audience Comment: They shredded the archives of the lie-factory at the end of o f the war. This is a book which I recommend, Propaganda recommend, Propaganda for War , it’s very much from an American point of view. It's an excellent book about the atrocity propaganda from the first World War. (An earlier book, is the old classic Unconditional Hatred  by  by Captain Grenfell.) I'll just quote from it: "As passions cooled after the war, the gigantic lies created by American and British propaganda, were one by one exposed to the light." There is only o nly one authenticated atrocity story from the First World War, and that was the illegal blockade of Germany, which extended till after the war, so that about seven hundred thousand people died of starvation, that was the one authenticated atrocity of the First World War. Furthermore -you don't have to agree with me here - I would say that there was an asymmetry here, whereby the atrocity propaganda was mainly on the British

and American and somewhat French side, but not on the German side. The Germans didn't have the same concept of fabricating untruths to motivate their troops. Audience comment: A week before, on July 25th, the British treasury began printing special notes that were marked 'for war expen ses.'[14] Many believed that a mistake made by Germany leading to the war, was its building up a navy to rival Britain's, which led to an arms race, a huge military arms race. Germany said, we've got colonies, so we have to have a navy - some people said that was the great disaster, that they should not have done it. So here's a view from 1925, if you'll excuse me quoting Adolf Hitler, looking at what he thought was the terrible mistake which needed to be avoided. He was wondering, how friendship with Britain could be achieved, and why had it failed so badly in the war? "No sacrifice should have been too great … We should have renounced colonies and sea power, spared British industry our competition.” [37] Germany should remain a land power. Renunciation of a German war-fleet and power of the land army - that would, he reckoned, be the key to not aggravating Britain, whereby they could have peaceful, friendly relations in the future. Finally, here is a review of a hundred years of friendship and enmity of Germany and England  Best of Enemies, Enemies, by Richard Milton. He referred to Britain's propaganda machine as “An infernal engine created in war but impossible to switch off in peace." We may reflect upon the main thing to have come out from the First World War, in his view: The indelible memory of atrocity stories that had taken place only in the imaginations of British propaganda agents proved to be stronger and more persistent than any facts.

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Slides used 1 Image: Your Country Needs You

2 Report by Col. Mandell House, May 1914: The situation is extraordinary. It is jingoism run stark mad. Unless someone acting for you [Wilson] can bring about a different understanding, there is coming some day an awful cataclysm. No one in Europe can do it. There is too much hatred, too many jealousies. Whenever England consents, France and Russia will close in on Germany and Austria.’

4 French position: Under Poincaré, the nature of the Franco-Russian alliance was fundamentally committed to war, not defence. Thus he visited Sazonov in St Petersburg to reassure him of French and British commitment to war with Germany… Edward Grey secretly assured Poincaré that Britain would support France and Russia as ‘an obligation obligation of honour’ should the Balkan trouble trouble lead to a European war.’ - Docherty & McGregor, Hidden McGregor, Hidden History, History, 2013, p.209, 236

5 Bertrand Russell’s Autobiography ‘I had noticed during previous years how carefully Sir Edward Grey lied in order to prevent the  public from knowing the methods by which he was committing us to the support of France in the event of war.’

6. Belgian non-neutrality: According to evidence later published in New York, the Belgians were advised in November  1912 by the British military that as soon as a European war broke out, 160,000 men would be transported to Belgium and northern France, with or without the permission of the Belgian government - Hidden - Hidden History, History, p.237

7. Kaiser as peacemaker  ‘Now ... he is acclaimed everywhere as the greatest factor for peace that our time can show. It was he, we hear, who again and again threw the weight of his dominating personality, backed by the greatest military organisation in the world – an organ isation built up by himself – into the  balance for peace wherever war clouds gathered over Europe.’ - New York Times, Times, ‘William II, II, King of Prussia and German Emperor, Kaiser 25 years a ruler, hailed as chief peacemaker’, 8 June 1913

8. Kaiser as peacemaker – 2 A former US President, William Howard Howard Taft, said of him: ‘The truth of history requires the verdict that, considering the critically important part which has been his among the nations, he has been, for the last quarter of a century, the single greatest force in the practical maintenance of peace in the world .’ In 1960 a BBC centenary centena ry tribute to the Kaiser was permitted to say: ‘Emphasis was placed on his love of England and his deep attachment to Queen Que en Victoria,’ his grandmother. Never had the Kaiser gone to war in 25 years on the throne, nor had the German army fought a battle in nearly half a century.

9 Kaiser Wilhelm

10 Colonel House’s view view of the Kaiser, 8 July 1914 Sir! Your Imperial Majesty will doubtless recall our conversation at Potsdam, and that with the President’s consent and approval I came to Europe for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not it was possible to bring about a better be tter understanding between the Great Powers … Because of the commanding position your Majesty occupies, and because of your well-known desire to maintain peace, I  came, as your Majesty knows, directly to Berlin. I can never forget the gracious acceptance of the general g eneral purposes of my mission, the masterly exposition of the orld-wide political conditions as they exist today and the prophetic forecast as to the future which your Majesty then made. I received every reasonable assurance of your  Majesty’s cordial approval of he President’s purpose, and I left Germany happy in the belief  that your Majesty’s great influence would be thrown in behalf of peace and the broadening of the world’s commerce … Edward House

11 Friendship Fest

June 23, 1914: Royal Navy battle squadron with new dreadnoughts dreadnou ghts sails into Kiel harbour. The Kaiser, wearing British British admiral uniform, inspects the King the King George V . June 28: assassination of Archduke Ferdinand.

12 Austria’s Ultimatum 24 July: Austria gives ultimatum to Serbia 26 July: Serbia accepts 9 out of 10 of Austrian demands. The Kaiser: ‘It was capitulation of the most humilating humilating sort. With it disappears every reason for war … Every cause for war now falls to the ground.’

27th

Austria declares war.

28th

Belgrade is shelled.

The Kaiser writes: ‘Stop in Belgrade!’

13 The Kaiser’s Advice

The Kaiser advocated a temporary military occupation: occupation: Let the Austrians occupy Belgrade until  Serbia accepts their demands – but stop at that. History, p.290 ‘On this basis, I am prepared to mediate for peace.’ -  Hidden History,

15 A Happy Man ‘Churchill was the only minister to feel any sense of e xultation at the course of events’ (his biographer John Charmley, on the days d ays leading up to the War) Churchill to his wife Clementine: ‘My darling one & beautiful. Everything tends towards catastrophe and collapse. I am interested, geared up and happy. Is it not horrible to be  built like that?’

‘Why I would not be out of o f this glorious delicious war for anything the world could give me.’ (Margot Asquith’s diary, January 1915)

16 Churchill sends British fleet to Germany on 28 July On July 26th, a ‘Test Mobilisation’ of the entire Royal Navy pa raded before the King at Spithead, after which the Navy was held in full battle-readiness. ‘Churchill, upon his own responsibility and against the express decision of the Cabinet, ordered the mobilisation of the Naval Reserve. ’ On the 27th, ‘the fleet [was] sent North’ Hugh Martin, Battle, Martin, Battle, the Life-story of the Rt Hon. Winston Churchill, 1937. Churchill secretly ordered the core of the fleet to move north to its protected wartime base .. riding at top speed and with its lights out, it tore through the night up the North sea.’ Adam Hochschild, To End All Wars, 2011, p.85.

17 To Prepare for War   Lord Nathaniel Rothschild made an unscheduled visit to Prime Minister Asquith to advise him on the preparations that his bank had put in place to prepare for war (Late July, 1914) - Hidden  History, p.290.  History, p.290. The Secret Elite meet:

29th July: Grey, Asquith, Haldane and Churchill had a meeting to discuss what Asquith called ‘the coming war.’

18 Harry Elmer Barnes, on war-initiation  The secret conference of Poincaré, P oincaré, Viviani and Messimy, in consultation with Izvolski, on the night of 29th of July, marks the moment momen t when the horrors of war were specifically unchained in Europe. - Barnes, The Genesis of the World War 1926 p.242 Compare: War was ‘deliberately, wilfully begun by Sazonov, Poincare and Sir Edward Grey, all a ll at the  behest of the secret elite in London.’ - Hidden History, p.297 History, p.297

19 The Secret Deal By secretly committing Britain to war for France, Grey, Churchill and Asquith left the Kaiser in the dark, unaware that a war with France meant war with the British empire. Britain turned the European war of August 1 into a world war… For Britain, World War 1 was was not a war war of necessity but a war war of choice.’  Buchanan,  -Buchanan, The Unnecessary War pp.50, War pp.50, 64

20 Kaiser telegrams Czar, 30 July I now receive authentic news of serious preparations for war on my Eastern frontier. … In my endeavours to maintain the peace of the world I have go ne to the utmost limit possible. The responsibility for the disaster which is now threatening the whole civilized world will not be laid at my door. In this moment it still lies in your po wer to avert it… My friendship for you and your  empire, transmitted to me by my grandfather on his deathbed has always been sacred to me and I have honestly often backed up Russia when she was in serious trouble e specially in her last war. The peace of Europe may still be maintained by you , if Russia will agree to stop the military measures which must threaten Germany and Austro-Hungary.

21 Timeline of war-outbreak  26th July: King reviews British fleet at Spithead, Churchill instructs it not to disperse. 27th Grey tells tells parliament he will resign, if Cabinet does not support his go-to-war-for-France go-to-war-for-France  policy. Churchill orders British fleet up to Scapa Flow. 29th Russia mobilised 30th Kaiser telegrams Tzar, ‘The ‘The peace of Europe may still still be maintained…’ st 31 Evening: French government ‘irrevocably decides’ to support Russia. French troops enter  Belgium 1st August, 1 am: French Govt. cables Russia, its war-support Noon: Grey – Lichnowsky conversation in London Night: Germany Germany declares war on Russia and mobilises 1st-2nd All Cabinet except Grey & Churchill are pro- British neutrality. 2nd Grey gives France the assurance of war-support. French planes flying over Belgium, German govt. warning to Belgium over neutrality violation violation th Tuesday 4 Germany invades Belgium, UK declares war on Germany, and then cuts the trans-Atlantic telephone cables from Germany 6th 200,000 of British Expeditionary Force to France

22 Kaiser Wilhelm’s diary 30-31st of July Frivolity and weakness are going to plunge the world into the most frightful war of which the ultimate object is the overthrow of Germany. For I no longer have any doubt that England, Russia and France have agreed among themselves – knowing that our treaty obligations compel us to support Austria – to use the Austro-Serb conflict as a pretext for waging a ar of annihilation against us.. . In this way the stupidity and clumsiness c lumsiness of our ally [Austria] is turned into a noose. So the celebrated encirclement of Germany has finally become an accepted fact... The net has suddenly been closed over our heads, and the purely anti-German policy hich England has been scornfully pursuing all over the world has won the most spectacular victory which we have proved ourselves powerless to prevent while they, having got us despite our struggles all alone into the net through our loyalty to Austria, proceed to throttle our political and economic existence. A magnificent achievement, which even those for whom it means disaster are bound b ound to admire.

23 H.G.Wells on Grey’s role ‘I think he (Gray) wanted the war and an d I think he wanted it to come when it did ... The charge is, that he did not definitely warn Germany, that we should certainly come into the war, that he was sufficiently ambiguous to let her take a risk and attack, and that he did d id this deliberately. I think  that this charge is sound. Autobiography

24  Daily News, News, August 1 ‘The greatest calamity in history is upon us … At this moment our fate is being sealed by hands that we know not, by motives alien to our interests, by influences that if we k new we should certainly repudiate

25 “Those dreadful fields of senseless carnage” ‘It came therefore to this. While negative assurances had been given to the House of Commons,  positive acts diametrically opposed to these assurances had been concerted by the War Office and the Admiralty with the authority of the Foreign Office. All the obligations of an alliance had  been incurred, but incurred by the most dangerous and subtle methods; incurred in such a way as to leave the Cabinet free to deny the existence of any formal parchment recording them, and free to represent its policy at home and abroad as one of contractual detachment d etachment from the rival Continental groups. - E.D. Morel, Truth and the War, 1916 War, 1916

26 The Secret Deal with France ‘The final mistake was that when, on the actual crisis arising, a decision one way o r the other  might and, so far as can be judged, would have averted the Continental war altogether ... The mischief is that Sir Edward Grey slipped into a new policy, but without either Army, or treaty, or  warrant of Parliamentary approval ... This country has a right to know its own obligations and  prepare to meet them and to decide its own destinies. When the most momentous decision of our  whole history had to be taken we were not free to decide. We entered a war to which we had  been committed beforehand in the dark, and Parliament found itself at two hours’ notice unable, had it desired, to extricate us from this fearful predicament... predicament... - The Earl Lorenburn, How Lorenburn, How the War Came, Came, 1919

27 ‘With a single sentence’ ‘A single sentence and the war in the West would not have taken place … It is really true that Sir Edward Grey could have prevented it with a single sentence… History will one d ay show that the neutrality of Belgium would never have h ave been violated if Sir Edward Grey had made the declaration which it would have been quite easy for him to make.’ Rudolf Steiner in December, 1916, concerning the meeting on August 1, 1914: The Karma of Untruthfulness

28 Grey, on his meeting with Lichnowsky, 1 August ‘He asked me whether, if Germany gave ga ve a promise not to violate Belgian neutrality we would engage to remain neutral. I replied that I could not say that: our hands h ands were still free, and we were considering what our attitude should be....I did not think that we could give a promise on that condition alone. The ambassador pressed me as to whether I could formulate conditions on which we would remain neutral. He even suggested that the integrity of France and her colonies might be guaranteed. I said that I felt obliged to refuse definitely any promise to remain neutral on similar  terms, and I could only say that we must keep our hands free.’ - Britain’s ‘Blue Book,’ HMSO, 1926, p.261.

29 A Summary of the August 1 meeting 'Now Prince Lichnowsky, the German Ambassador Ambassador in London, asked whether England would agree to remain neutral if Germany refrained from violating Belgium’s neutrality. Sir Edward Grey refused. Britain wanted to retain ‘a free hand’ (‘I did not think we could give a promise of  neutrality on that condition alone’). Would he agree if Germany were to guarantee the integrity of both France and her colonies? No.’ - Georg Brandes Farbenblinde Brandes Farbenblinde Neutralität, Zurich Neutralität, Zurich 1916 [15]

30 US President Woodrow Wilson, March 1919 ‘We know for a certainty that if Germany had h ad thought for a moment that Great Britain would go in with France and Russia, she would never have undertaken the enterprise.’

31 Rudolf Steiner, December 1616 Let me merely remark, that certain things happe ned from which the only sensible conclusion conc lusion to  be drawn later turned out to be the correct one, namely that behind those who were in a way the  puppets there stood in England a powerful and influential group of people

32 Poster: Remember Belgium

ho pushed matters doggedly towards a war with Germany and through whom the way as paved for the world war that had always been prophesied. For of course the way can be  paved for what it is intended should happen. ..it is impossible to avoid realising how powerful was the group who like an outpost of mighty impulses, stood behind the puppe ts in the foreground. These latter are of course, perfectly honest people, yet they are puppets, and now they will vanish into obscurity. The Karma of Untruthfulness Vol.1, p84.

33 Bernard Shaw on Belgium ‘The violation of Belgian neutrality by the Ge rmans was the mainstay of our righteousness; and we played it off on America for much more than it was worth. I guessed that when the German account of our dealings with Belgium reached the United states, backed with an array of  facsimiles of secret diplomatic documents discovered by them in Brussels, it would be found that our own treatment of Belgium was as little compatible with neutrality as the German invasion. 34 Belgian ‘  Belgian ‘ invasion’ invasion’ 3 August: Germany offered Belgium friendly neutrality if German troops were offered safe  passage. ‘Germany would, by necessity, have to cross Belgium in its defence against France. Su ch temporary use of a right of way…There were precedents: during the Boer War, British troops were permitted passage across neutral Portuguese territory to fight in South Africa.’ - Hidden History, p. History, p. 326

36 Aftermath: the lies emerge

‘As passions cooled after the war, the gigantic lies created by Great Britain’s and America’s  propaganda were one by one exposed to the light. ‘The one true and perfectly pe rfectly authenticated ‘atrocity’ in the World War, and the situation which  produced by far the greatest suffering and death among the civilian population was the illegal  blockade of Germany, continued for many months after the armistice’. Stewart Ross, Propaganda Ross, Propaganda for War 2009, pp.24,47 2009, pp.24,47

37 An Ardent Anglophile on the Error that led to War  ‘No sacrifice should have been too great for winning England’s willingness. We should have renounced colonies and sea power, and spared English industry our competition. Only an absolutely clear orientation could lead to such a goal: renunciation of world trade and an d colonies; renunciation of a German war fleet; concentration concen tration of all the state’s instruments of power on the land army. The result to be sure would have been a momentary limitation but a great and mighty future.’ - Hitler, Mein Hitler, Mein Kampf (1925)

38 The Engine of Propaganda ‘…Britain’s propaganda machine, an infernal engine created in war, but impossible to switch off in peace.’

‘The indelible memory of atrocity stories that had taken place only in the imaginations of  British propaganda agents  proved to be stronger and more persistent than any facts. This curious discovery, the power of myths over facts, was the real legacy of the First World War.’ - Richard Milton, Best Milton, Best of Enemies, 2007, p.68.

Part II of ‘How Britain Initiated both World Wars’ *** World War Two

AGAIN WE LOOK AT THE IDEA of who wanted to start a world war. This might be too disturbing: if it is, we don't want to cause an y breach of the peace, peace , so we'll just back off and just have a chat, if anybody finds what I'm going to say now too disturbing: because, we're all heavily  programmed with this - the ultimate good guy Winston Churchill, Man of the Century, and the ultimate bad guy Adolf Hitler. I'm not concerned with judgments about who's good and who's  bad here. We're trying to talk about the idea of wanting a war to start. This is not the history of  the war, it’s the process of initiation. In 1936, Bomber Command comes co mes into existence and long-range bombers start to be constructed. Spaight of the Air Ministry explained: "The whole raison d'etre of Bomber  Command was to bomb Germany, should she be our enemy."[16] [See slide No.1] So if you  believe that wars happen in accordance with the technology that exists, the manufacturing of  these long-range bombers indicates some new intention - Bomber - Bomber Command  by  by Max Hastings says, the Lancasters were "heavy bombers which no other country in the world could match" and Germany and France had lighter bombers, primarily for air-support. They didn't build planes with the intention of bombing cities - whereas British planes could fly high and drop their   bombs, and had a long range. This begins in 1936. While researching my book [17], I came across quite a lot of statements by Jews about the fact that a World War was going to happen, happe n, a war against Germany. We all know that Jews declared economic warfare against Germany in 1933, and I'm not being judgmental - what Hitler had written in Mein in Mein Kampf , you can appreciate that they'd be annoyed. But as well as this, there are statements that a war is going to come: "Hitler will have no war, but we will force it on him, not this year but soon" and "We will trigger a spiritual and material war of all the world against Germany" and "Our Jewish interests demand the complete destruction of Germany." [3] You might say that no truer words were ever spoken in the 20th century – that country’s breeding and

reproduction rate is presently at a low level which cannot possibly recover, and it may be inevitable now that German culture will fade away. So it's "a spiritual and material war" that is here blueprinted, and we may reflect on what happened at Nuremberg, when monstrous accusation were formulated against Germany, after it had been pulverised and destroyed. Later on, when war was declared, de clared, we get statements like these: "Israeli people around the world declare economic and financial war, holy war against Hitler's people" and "Even if we Jews are not bodily with you in the trenches, we are nevertheless with you. This is o ur war, and you are fighting it for us" - in other words, the Jews are glad to have the goyim goy im fighting each other one more time. There is a frightening book by b y a Tory MP Captain Archibald Ramsey calledThe called The ameless War   - which you might find hard to get - and he was put in jail throughout the war by Churchill, for his anti-war activity, and he said: “International Judaism has demonstrated by the course of the 20th century, that it could start a war” and destroy Germany, by a "spiritual and material war." [5] That obviously is very politically incorrect view. But if yo u ask, Who in the 1930s wanted another war, when nearly all the world was praying desperately that it should not happen? you do find these sources. After the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was kind of chopp ed up, the peoples who felt they were German had been separated into different nations, like a jellyfish chopped up into different bits, and they were wanting to come together again, the different bits were wanting to reconnect. At  Nuremberg it was declared, that these were wars of aggression, aggression, when Hitler went into different countries -they said he invaded Austria, he invaded Czechoslovakia and he invaded Poland. But, I want to try and put a different point of view here: these were Germanic people who were German and wanted to re-join Germany. When the German troops went into Austria, they were greeted with flowers being thrown in their path, an d there was no military action, there was rejoicing, and I believe the same happened when they went into the Sudetenland, which was a  part of Czechoslovakia, that they were greeted by people who wanted to be part of Germany. Germany had been immensely successful in the 1930s, with its prodigious economic recovery, and that became a motive for peoples wanting to be a part of Germany. There was division around Danzig between people who felt they were German, in land that had  been given to Poland. This became a terrible provocation which soon led to the war. There was a  policy enunciated at Chatham House, which one could argue was being pursued by Germany.[8] After WW1, Britain and America had been talking about the right of determination of small nations, self-determination, that was a kind of mantra, and the Americans especially liked it as their formula for dismantling the British Empire -the right of self-determination of small nations. People were trying to think of, what wha t had been the point po int of the first World War? Ah yes, it was Belgium's right of self-determination. Could that formula also be applied to, say, Austria, or to German-speaking people in different countries? Let's hear what was said by Lord Lothian, who addressed Chatham House in 1927: If the principle of self-determination were applied on behalf of Germany, in the way that it was applied against them, it would mean the re-entry of Austria into Germany, the union of Sudetenland, Danzig, and of Memel in and at least certain adjustments of  Poland and Silesia in the Corridor.

The key question here is, did Germans, people who feel they are German, have a right to gather  together into one country? This was what wha t Hitler called the 'Reich,' the idea of that togetherness, that would be larger than what was originally defined as Germany in 1871. Did they have that right - or, would that threaten other European countries? That is here the question. Let’s focus especially on what happened to Poland in 1939. Land had been ripped away from Germany by the Treaty of Versailles at the end of the war, and given to Poland. What was defined as Poland had at most 50% of native Polish people in it, and they were trying to assert a national identity, very much by getting rid of people who they felt were outsiders, ou tsiders, and this was having catastrophic consequences. The historian A.J.P. Taylor said, "Danzig was the most justified of German grievances - a city of  exclusively German population, which wished to return to the Reich, and Hitler himself  restrained only with difficulty”.[9] Germany asked: Can we build a railway and road connecting Germany with Danzig? Poland did not even reply. Britons were concerned about German expansion, they said, you're grabbing this and you're grabbing that, and so the fatal war-guarantee was given to Poland. That led to even more truculent behavior by Poland, once Chamberlain had given it his unconditional war-guarantee. In A.J.P. Taylor’s view, there had been no intention to intention to invade Poland - I think that's important. [9] Everyone nowadays believes in Hitler's bad faith, but he said, with the Czechoslovak deal, that was his last demand for land. He didn't intend to go into Poland. I want to suggest that - or  rather, A.J.P. Taylor is saying that - he wanted Germany and Poland to remain on good terms. We recall that a non-aggression pact had been signed in 1934 between Germany and Poland. Here the philosophy was, that in the last war, there had been mutual defence agreements all round Europe that had somehow flipped over to become offensive. Countries signed up to what they said was a defensive agreement, and it all went horribly wrong. So, Germany and Poland instead tried to make a non-aggression pact, which was valid for ten years. It was simply a  promise, we will not invade each other. At that time, the Polish army was much bigger than the German army. That was allright, until Poland had a change in chancellor cha ncellor in the mid-thirties, who rejected that and took a totally different view as we'll see. The land in question grabbed by Poland had traditionally been German land - militarily-governed  by Poland long after the truce in 1918, to the newly-made state of Poland. So what was regarded as German aggression and the cause of WW2 - going into Poland - you could say this was just traditional German land being taken back. The non-aggression pact that Germany and Poland made did not allow any reporting of Polish atrocities against minority Germans. That caused the emigration of a million Germans. This is a story which you'll ge nerally find missed-out of history  books: the fate of Germans living in what had become Poland, since the Treaty of Versailles. Late in 1938 Hitler made this offer to Poland Po land [11], - it would have guaranteed gu aranteed its boundaries and  protected it against Soviet Russia. It had the German free state of Danzig given a road and rail connection, as it desired to be a part of Germany. And then - this is a bit more controversial - a  plebiscite would be given to West Prussia, as to who they wanted to belong to. Poland is

guaranteed an open sea-port, and they would then continue with the non-aggression pact. Poland didn't respond to that deal at all - very truculent behavior. My understanding - which you may disagree with – is that a hundred thousand Germans had to flee to the woods; or be under  shelling from Polish troops from over the borders; “more than seventy thousand refugees had to  be housed in German refugee camps. The aggression against Germans increased on a daily  basis." [11] It may be hard to believe this, but Poland was wanting  war  war with Germany. [14] It published a map of Europe showing a whole lot of Germany carved out and having become Poland. This  became far worse when in March, 1939, Chamberlain gave this unconditional war-guarantee to Poland. It had had a non-aggression pact with Germany, and that was rejected, and instead there was a war-guarantee: which said that in any war with Germany, even if Poland starts it, Britain it, Britain would come in. That was just what Poland wanted because it did want war. Poland intensified its persecution of the German minority. Speaking German in public was  prosecuted - this is land that had been German, up until 1918. German-associated newspapers were suppressed, and so forth. The Germans felt this nullified the agreement which they had made at Munich in September 1938 for Britain and Germany to work closely together to maintain the peace. Chamberlain had felt he wanted to do something, but what was he going to do? Buchanan in his The Unnecessary War  tends  tends to regard it as the most foolish act of statesmanship in British history - the war-guarantee given to Poland. People just couldn't believe that Britain had done such a thing. I recommend that book as the best possible analysis of this catastrophic moment, which precipitated the truculent Polish behavior. When we look back at the way the war broke out, we may wonder, could not Germany have just done nothing for a few years? y ears? After all, Czechoslovakia and Austria, weren’t they enou gh? Couldn't it have just stayed that way, just left it, left the Danzig problem, just let everything calm down - couldn't it have just done nothing? Well, let us suppose there were people who wanted war - if we suppose that - once that British war-guarantee had been given, all they had to do was intensify the persecution of Germans in that part of Poland, until Germany had to do something about it. So, here is a German view I've got - and it's difficult to get a German view on the subject, isn't it? You hardly h ardly get books [18] translated from the German available. I got this from a we bsite  - ‘The British promise to wage war against Germany, if only Poland would succeed to get Germany into the war, even by aggression’ - so Poland's rabid incitement against Germany was escalated, Polish newspapers demand the occupation of Danzig, all of East Prussia, they advocate Poland should push its  border all the way to the river, maybe annexing Berlin. They felt they'd got the superior army, and this was kind of truculent behavior, and the new President of Poland said (1939) “Poland wants war with Germany, and Germany will not be able to avoid it, even e ven if she wants to”. That was true enough. Poland seems to have thought that a cavalry charge could somehow manage against the German tanks. Nobody quite knew how … yes?

Audience comment: …’Roosevelt was on the phone pho ne continually in this pre-war period, [19] encouraging the Poles to act intransigently.’  Yes thank you for that. You will not readily find that in the history books, for example this one, [The [The Unnecessary War, Buchanan] excellent though it is, gives no accounts of the open terror, murder and rape in the months preceding September ’39. This may be something where one has to get so-called ‘farright’ Revisionist books [i.e., books that will attend to Germany’s viewpoint] to find a mention. On my understanding that is why Germany had to do something, had ha d to take some sort of action. Here’s a British ex-pat giving a testimony[20]:[15] “Terrorists began murdering civilians in large numbers. On the nights of August 25th to August 31, that is just days day s before the war, there are authenticated acts of armed violence against ag ainst German officials and property. These incidents took   place on the border or inside German territory.” So, deliberate provocation was going on. “Mobs were assaulting thousands of men, women and children” – so Germany was I would suggest coming to the rescue of these Germans who were being done in. On August 30th, Poland orders total mobilisation – under the Protocols of the League of Nations, that is equivalent to a declaration of war [21]. [17] One could argue that it was Poland that effectively declared war and Germany had to respond. Germany then goes in, at the beginning of  September, to the pre-Versailles German areas given to Poland. Was that aggression? I’m saying that there was a reason for Germany having to do this, and that it was not part of the original  plan. They had originally asked for Danzig to be returned, for a connection to be made with Danzig. If England had wanted to avoid the war, it could have leant on Poland, to give some sort of rights to the German minorities there. And, it could have leant on Poland to agree to a railway  being built. I’d have thought that these were reasonable demands, that if Anglo-German friendship had been desired, that could have been done, as far as I can see, to remove this immediate cause of war. Germany thought that by going in with the Soviet Union, that would somehow not activate the British guarantee to Poland – that, with those two going in together, Britain would not declare d eclare war on both of them. Upon entering Danzig, the German army are showered are showered with flowers. Here flowers. Here is a comment from a German commander, about that reception. “It was like this everywhere – in the Rhineland, in Vienna, in the Sudeten territories and in Memel – do you still doubt the mission of the Fuhrer?” [18] That is greatly missed out from modern accounts, that there was rejoicing amongst the German people, when a connection was made with the motherland of Germany. At Nuremberg, these were describe as wars of aggression – aggression – he’s gone in here, he’s gone in there,  but another way of looking at it, is that there were different populations who felt they were German wanting to live together and wanting to be together, and the whole Second World War  was about that not  being  being permitted. No, that greater expanse of Europe, of people wanting to be German together, cannot be permitted. Here is as it were the greater Germany that tried to come together, [19] and everybody e verybody decided it

could not be allowed. Czechoslovakia was very outrageously occupied. Hitler went into Prague –  that was (I suggest) the terrible, catastrophic error that he made, o f going into Prague where he had no business to be. Czechoslovakia (1918-1993) was what we would nowadays call a failed state. It was coming apart in 1938. It was patched together in the Treaty of Versailles from divers  bits of Europe that didn’t want to be together. Instead of just saying, this is is outrageous German aggression, we could say, Sudetenland wanted to be part of Germany, and likewise the Poles in Czechoslovakia wanted to be part of Poland. So it kind of broke up. I may not be defending what the Germans did, of going into Czechoslovakia. France invaded Germany on September 7th, to eight kilometres. We’re always told how wicked it is for Germany to have occupied France, so let’s just point out that France did invade Germany a week after Britain declared war. I want to look at the subject of German peace-offers, I think this is relevant to the question of  who was responsible for the war and who wh o started the war. Possibly the best book on the subject is  Himmler’s Secret War  by  by Martin Allen – I had ha d quite a bit to do with investigating this book.[22] It describes the cascade of German peace-offers peac e-offers that kept appearing, right through the war [23], and how Churchill first of all forbade anyone to look at them, and then, towards the end of 1940 the British black-ops started to use the peace offers, to manipulate Ge rmany, by making them think  they would take them seriously, while actually they just wanted the appearance of using u sing them for   purposes of deception. Let’s have a quote. Hitler said, “I’ve always expressed to France my desire to bury forever our  ancient enmity, and bring together these two nations, both of which have such glorious pasts… I have devoted no less effort to an achievement of Anglo-German understanding, no more than that, of Anglo-German friendship. At no time and a t no place have I ever acted contrary to British interests… Why should this war in the West be fought ?” ?” [21] Two main German peaceoffers came in October 1939 and July 1940, both dismissed by Britain. Are you surprised if I say that Hitler always had a deep admiration for Britain, always wanted friendship with Britain, is that surprising? Hitler’s Mein Hitler’s  Mein Kampf  was  was totally banned during the War, because it had a major theme, of the tremendous importance of goo d relations with Britain. He would watch films of say the British in India, a nd he would say, there, that’s the master-race, that’s what the master-race was like. If I may quote Richa rd Milton’s fine book, Best book, Best of Enemies: Enemies: “The leader of the resurgent German nation and the Nazi party was a self-professed Anglophile, whose primary foreign–policy aim was an alliance with Britain.” [22] This may remind us of the Kaiser yearning for a deal of friendship that co uld never happen. Let’s quote from David Irving, his Hitler’s his Hitler’s War. (His War. (His first book on Dresden had been be en an international bestseller). He was well-known, respected and liked, and then he did ten years’ yea rs’ research on Hitler’s on Hitler’s War , using original sources, from people who know him and so forth, and again it sold rather well - but Macmillan pulped all his books and he suddenly found himself  ersona non grata. grata. Anyway here’s a quote from him. Rudolf Hess asked him, ‘“Mein Fuhrer, are your views about the British still the same?” Hitler gloomily sighed, “If only the British knew how little I little I ask of them.” How he liked to leaf through the glossy pages of Tatler, studying the

British aristocracy in their natural habitat! Once he was overheard to say, “Those are valuable specimens, those are the ones I’m going to make peace with”’. [23] So he was scheming how to make peace with Britain, but he never quite made it. Terrific non-stop fantasizing goes on about Germany having wanted to invade Britain. I see the magazine History magazine History Today this Today this week has got a big item on it. The British were being given gas masks etc to prepare for when this wicked man would come to take over our country. If I may quote two quite respected sources [24]: Sir Basil Hart, Revolution Hart, Revolution in Warfare, Warfare, and History of 2nd World War- There was “a but faintly imagined and conditional plan to invade Britain in the summer of 1940”. Basically, they just wanted to get up to Biggin Hill and stop the bombers taking off. I suggest that any desire to invade Britain was motivated by a desire to stop those  bomber planes taking off, that were incinerating the cities of Germany. Also, “At no time did this man Hitler pose or intend a real threat to Britain or to the Empire” - that was David Irving’s view, that I suggest we should accept. A.J.P. Taylor, the renowned historian, has well de scribed the Second World War in which sixty million people died as “Less wanted by nearly everybody than almost any other war in history.” Was it even less wanted less wanted than the First World War? We here h ere pose the question, who wants it to happen, who makes it happen? ha ppen? Once again Winston Churchill was the First Sea-Lord, the same  position as he held in the First World War. Initially Initially he held that position, then he became Prime Minister. We listen to his Reasons for War, as to why there should be another war with Germany. Back in  November 1936 he said: “Germany is becoming too powerful, we have to crush it”. That’s years  before any war breaks out. David Irving discovered – unhappily for his reputation – that the group Focus was set up in 1936 by the Chair of the Board of Jewish Deputies, basically Churchill’s bills. [27] As a membership group, ‘The Anti-Nazi League’, or the Focus, it  promoted and supported Churchill, and its imperative was – quoting David Irving – “first of all, all, the tune that Churchill had to play was, fight Germany”. Churchill’s debts from gambling and heavy boozing – and he had been a hospitalized alcoholic, let’s bear that in mind – all his bills for brandy would be paid, and his stately home would not be auctioned off, thanks to this group, The Focus.

Let’s have a few more of Churchill’s Chu rchill’s Reasons for War. In 1939, “This war is an English war, and its goal is the destruction of Germany”. What kind of war-aim is that? Normally wars are fought for some land-purpose, or because you are annoyed, or somebody has insulted you, or you need some raw materials. But no - this is a goal which does not permit any negotiation. nego tiation. Diplomats cannot resolve this, if the guy in charge says the goal is the destruction d estruction of Germany - this being the mightiest nation in the centre of Europe, this being the Christian heart of Europe. The two strongest nations in Europe inevitably are going to be Britain and Germany, because they have got the iron and coal underneath the ground. They are inevitably the strongest. Anyone who wants to foster war between Britain and Germany, can only be wanting the destruction of  Europe, or the undermining and disintegration of Europe, that’s (I suggest) the only possible motive. Then Churchill said, “You must understand, this war is not against Hitler or National Socialism,  but against the strength of the German people, which is to be smashed once and for all.” [28] What kind of statement is that? I suggest that you will not find in the utterances of Winston Churchill, any trace of ethics or morality. This is the Man of the Century and it’s just my interpretation. Again Churchill: “The war is not just a matter of elimination of fascism in Germany, but rather about obtaining German sales markets.” Huh? Then again: “Germany’s unforgiveable crime before WW2 was its attempt to loosen its economy from out of the world trade system and build up an independent exchange system from which the world finance could not profit any more.” The ever-glorious eve r-glorious achievement of Nazi Germany in the 1930 s was to manage its own banking system, away from the tentacles of Rothschild control. It printed its own money at source, that’s why it had that terrific economic recovery, that no other European country could match. No other country before or since in Europe managed that in the 20th century, escaping from the clutches of international ba nkers. Churchill is seeing that as a Reason for War. Those are the reasons given by Churchill, which you may or may not find much sense in.

He gets elected on May 10th ,and on the next day May 11th city bombing begins. This is the most terrible crime ever conceived by the mind of man, to ignite cities full of people. How can anyone  be so wicked as to want to do such a thing? It begins with cities like Hamburg, Duesberg, and these are not reported in the British newspapers. Let’s hear from an important philosophical book   by Veale, Advance Veale, Advance to Barbarism, the Development of Total Warfare: “The “The raid on the night of  th May 11 , 1940, was an epoch-making event, since it was the first deliberate breach of the fundamental rule of civilized warfare, that hostilities must only be waged against enemycombatant forces.” You don’t hear a lot about this in official accounts of the war. Floor comment about German bombing of the Spanish town Guernica in 1930s. It was less than a hundred deaths, Communists were retreating, I d on’t think that’s in any way comparable to what’s happening here. This then continues, with Churchill wanting to provoke Hitler to return the bombing, and he’s frustrated that it doesn’t happen. Starting on May 11th, there was a pretence that it was against the Ruhr’s industrial targets, but actually the planes are flying high, dropping their bombs whenever they see the lights of a city - it is city-bombing. AJP Taylor was a brilliant and very successful historian, who could never ever get to lecture at Oxford University again, after these words of his were published: “The almost universal belief that Hitler started the indiscriminate  bombing of civilians, whereas it was started by the directors of British British strategy, as some of the more honest among them have boasted.” To what was he alluding? The first carpet-bombing of a German city was Duesberg on 15th May, followed by Hamburg on the 16th, as not  reported  reported in British newspapers. The British people don’t know this is happening, that is my impression. Churchill defines the point of the war in the House of Commons on May 13th, as Britain’s new Prime Minister. He says “our aim, in one word is victory, victory at all costs”. [32] What could victory mean, over a country coun try that has never ever wanted to fight Britain, always wanted friendship with Britain? It’s triggered by Poland, a country that did not then exist, having been swallowed up by Germany and the Soviet Union, so what would victory mean? Victory I suggest means what he has earlier defined, viz. the destruction of Germany. I suggest that is the war-aim that is implied, when he says victory at all costs. What he here means by victory, implies that any negotiation is pointless. There’s nothing to negotiate about, he just wants to smash Germany. I would suggest that Churchill’s foreign policy is fully expressed in three words, wreck, smash, destroy. destroy. That’s just a personal impression of course. He ge ts a thrill out of all this. He’s very good at organizing. He creates the terrific fantasy - which British people still believe to this day that a monstrous fiend wanted to invade this island. Why? Because it wanted world-domination. That is the ‘evil monster’ he was fighting against – which Britons still believe, to this day. What happened at Dunkirk has, ha s, for the first time, appeared into a mainstream book [Buchanan, The Unnecessary War ] – before that it had been be en just a few weirdo revisionists who believed it.[24] The British army had been totally routed and was cornered on the beaches of Dunkirk. It was totally at the mercy of the German troops, who were about to wipe them out, and then suddenly an order came from the top level, to stop. No, you’re not allowed to wipe out these British troops? Why not? The generals didn’t believe it, they said, this must be a mistake. And they started to close in, then another order came. Then Hitler himself turned up. [33]

Here was the most terrible row that Hitler had with Rudolf Hess, his c hief advisor and soul-mate in all of this. Hess said, for God’s sake go in, you’ve got to wipe them out, it’s the only way, if  you want to win the war. And he said, ‘No, I will not do d o it, I will not attack these British troops’. Why not? Let’s read what he said. Here is one report, of an astounded general having Hitler  himself lecturing him. “He, Hitler, astonished us by speaking with ad miration of the British Empire” – this is at Dunkirk, right? “Of the n ecessity for its existence, and of the civilization that Britain had brought into the world. He compared the British Empire with the Catholic Church.” The two institutions he admired most in the world were the Catholic Church and the British Empire, as being forces for stability. The things he ha ted most were the Bolsheviks and international finance. “He compared the British Empire with the Catholic Church, they were both essential elements of stability in the world. All he wanted from Britain, was that she should acknowledge Germany’s position on the Continent. The return of Germany’s colonies would be desirable but not essential, and he would offer to support Britain with troops if she should be involved in difficulties anywhere.” I believe that the Kaiser did that too – both Kaiser and Hitler made the offer, that they would be happy to lend German troops in support, should there be anywhere that the British Empire needed support. In WW2 Britain had a very clear choice, of Germany in favour of the British Empire and supporting it, and praising it and admiring it, whereas America had a clear policy of   breaking up the British Empire because it wanted its own. That was a very clear choice Britain had, whom to ally with. Here is another astonished general remembering from Dunkirk, who had Hitler explaining to him why Brits stranded on the beach there should not be wiped out, but instead they should all be allowed to return to England. [34] He cherished the vain and absurd a bsurd hope that this would lead to some sort of friendship or acceptance of a deal for ending the war. But Bu t instead, Churchill just made up his own story about abou t it, and it was more or less forgotten. Hitler had then explained: “The blood of every single Englishman is too valuable to be shed … Our two people belong together racially and traditionally. This is and always has been my aim.” We are Anglo-Saxons and the Germans are Saxons. How is it possible that we should be fighting ea ch other? Floor comment – Speak for yourself, I am Celtic. This is at the end of May when Churchill has come into power, and has initiated the bombing of  German cities. So this Dunkirk episode happens – I feel there is a contrast here of o f sanity and madness – with Hitler saying that Germany and Britain should never fight each other, and wanting some kind of friendship. What he wa s up against was what we may call the ‘Phantom Menace,’ the demonised enemy image: here is the arch-fiend who wants world-domination and so on. We can’t do a deal, and Germans are so wicked that we’ve just got to bomb their cities the most unbelievably horrific concept. Here is a chap who worked for the British Air Ministry. He is explaining – and there aren’t many  books which frankly describe how the RAF started bombing cities - the “Strategic Bombing Offensive.” [35] Quoting from his book called Bombing called Bombing Vindicated : “We have shrunk from th giving our great decision of May 11  the publicity which it deserved.” He explained that Hitler

had not wanted the mutual bombing to go on: “Again and again the German official reports applauded the reprisal elements in the actions o f the Luftwaffe … If you stop bombing us, we’ll stop bombing you.” To this day, British people do not believe that, do they? They will admire the heroism of the Battle of Britain and the Blitz, but will not believe that a peace offer was always on the table: If you stop bombing b ombing us, we’ll stop bombing you. This one-sided on e-sided bombing of  German cities went on for three whole months, before the Germans responded. The Luftwaffe finally bombed London, on September 6th. Peace-leaflets were dropped over London in June 1940, called “an appeal to reason,” quoting Hitler that, “I can see no reason why this war must go on” [34]. He talked about the enemy who “for the second time has declared war upon us for no reason whatever.” A crucial moment when Churchill killed the peace offensive in England, Irving said, was July 1940. Here is a quote from Mein from Mein Kampf  showing  showing Hitler’s admiration of Britain, of what he sees as the tough quality of the British people, whereby they got their empire. [Slide 38]. What we might call David Irving’s thesis, as I’m not aware of any other historian who has  backed this up, has British city-bombing start on 11th May and that carries on, with massive massive  bombing of Berlin for example in August as a hundred planes go over and start bombing Berlin, repeatedly, whereas only on the 6th September does the Luftwaffe come and bomb London. Then East London goes up in flames, and Churchill finally gets what he wants. At last he can sit back  and enjoy another lovely war! He leaves London whenever he gets intelligence in advance that the bombing is going to come. He is perfectly safe, then returns the next morning and wanders round, greeting people amidst the wreckage of their homes. They say, Good old Winnie, we knew you’d stand by us! He has brought on the bombing of London by this manipulation. Let’s be aware that, as Prime Minister, he can simply ring up Bomber Command: ‘I want a hundred bombers go over to Berlin’ – he doesn’t have to go through Parliament or anything. It is staggering and horrific that a Prime Minister can do that, can more or less get a war going of his own initiative. On what one might call David Irving’s thesis, Luftwaffe that drop bombs on London town are reprimanded,  because only military targets are allowed, and that is a strict policy; whereas by mistake, mistake, on August 24th, some bombers go too far and drop stuff on London - that mistake enables ena bles the big response, that Churchill wants. That is Irving’s theme which seems quite likely. This is just echoing what we have just said, a peace message did come through from Sweden, Victor Mallett [39] and the War Cabinet gave instructions to ignore it. What was called the Blitz began on the 6th September, when the Luftwaffe set East Londo n alight. Let me quote a great g reat modern revisionist Arthur Butz, in The Hoax of the 20th Century  (1976): “The British people were not permitted to find out that the government could cou ld have stopped the German raids at any time, merely by stopping the raids on Germany.” [41] People are thrilled by the suffering, with the Blitz being regarded as our finest hour, ‘We survived the Blitz.’ One should rather ask people, Why did you want to have that? What was the point of   bombing Germany so that you could have a Blitz in London? Was it just so Churchill could

enjoy his war, or was there some other o ther purpose, apart from devastating cities in Europe?

Image: The Blitz Peace offers were coming though the King of Sweden, through the Pope, all sorts of people were giving these, all being ignored. Let me cite one of these, in November 1940. [43] This one was so good it was quite difficult for the British government to ignore it: All these countries in in Europe – Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France to be independent and free states. The political independence and national identity of a Polish state to be restored – remember  Poland had been swallowed up. So Germany would do its bit to restore it, it couldn’t do anything about what Russia had. Czechoslovakia would not be prevented from developing her national character” – so if  there were bits of Czechoslovakia that wanted to be together, Germany would not prevent that. It would like some German colonies restored, and greater European economic solidarity to  be pursued. That was the crux of this offer that came in November 1940. His book has been very much attacked and denounced by the British establishment, and Martin Allen, I surmise he’s been  bumped off actually, or he is no longer around. We tried to contact him, after he came out with this book and they tried to discredit it, by claiming that letters he used in the National Archive were forged – I won’t go all that – but I don’t think he’s around a round anymore.[25] He described this as “a peace offer so generous that it left most of Britain’s war aims sounding utterly hollow.” This rather refutes, I suggest, the idea that Germany sought world-domination. I think that is rather  refuted. Such peace offers being just dismissed may tend to show, who wanted the war. Two million tons of bombs were dropped in this ghastly process, reducing to rubble the wonderful cultural heritage of Europe - by Britain and America. People say, how terrible, what the Nazis did to Coventry, how wicked! [45] But they never appreciate the ratio of tonnage of   bombs dropped by each side, a twenty-to-one ratio: twenty-to-one ratio: the tonnage of bombs dropped on Germany, compared to what they dropped on Britain. Here’s an analysis of it, showing a mere five percent of total bombs dropped fell on Britain.

David Irving argued that what happened with the attack on Warsaw was not comparable to what Britain did with city bombing: then, notice was given, leaflets were dropped warning the civilian  population, and every effort was made, I think, to resolve the situation amicably before war   broke out. Then a formal ultimatum was given. Bombardment of a city is allowed under these conditions under the Hague Conventions. [46] I would say that Germany fought both wars in accord with the Hague Conventions, which you can’t say for this country. I’m asking you the question really, we’ve looked at two different world wars, do you feel there was anything in common regarding the way they were initiated and the motives for them? Have I completely distorted things in saying that Germany didn’t want these wars and was very much the victim? ..

* * * * * **

Slides Used

1 Bomber command 1936: ‘Bomber Command’ comes into existence, a nd long-range bomber planes start to be constructed. Its purpose was candidly described by J.M.Spaight of the Air Ministry: ‘The whole raison d’etre of d’etre of Bomber Command was to bomb Germany should she be our enemy.’ So, those who wanted war started planning for it.

2 Plans for City Bombing Bombing The Lancasters were ‘heavy bombers which no other country in the world could match.’ Germany and France had lighter bombers ‘primarily for air support,’ or ‘tactical air power.’ Max Hastings, Bomber Hastings, Bomber Command  1979,  1979, 50.

3 Jews Declare War  “We Jews are going to bring bring a war on Germany.” D.A. Brown, National Chairman, United United Jewish Campaign,1934 “Hitler will have no war (does not want war), but we will force it on him, not this year, but soon” Emil Ludwig Cohn in Les in Les Annales, June 1934 ‘We will trigger a spiritual and material war of all the world against Germany’s ambitions to  become once again a great nation, to recover lost territories and colonies. But our Jewish interests demand the complete destruction destruction of Germany.’ - Vladimir Jabotinsky (founder of terror  group, Irgun Zvai Leumi) in Mascha in Mascha Rjetsch, Rjetsch, January 1934

4 “The Israeli people around the world world declare economic and financial war against Germany…

holy war against Hitler’s people.” 8 Sept 1939, Jewish 1939, Jewish Chronicle, Chronicle, declared by Chaim Weizmann, the Zionist leader  “Even if we Jews are not bodily b odily with you in the trenches, we are nevertheless morally with you. This is OUR WAR, and you are fighting it for us.” —   Les Nouvelles Litteraires, Litteraires, 10 February 1940

5 Captain Ramsey’s View  “International Judaism has demonstrated by the cou rse of the 20th century that it could cou ld start war” and destroy Germany by “a spiritual spiritual and material war.” - Tory MP Captain Archibald Ramsay, The Nameless War (1952)

Captain Ramsey

7 Chatham House policy, 1927  German policy adhered closely to the opinions of Lord Lothian in an address in 1927 at Chatham House said: ”Now, if the principle of self-determination were applied on behalf of  Germany, in the way that it was applied against them, it would mean the re-entry of  Austria into Germany, the union of Sudetenland, Danzig, and probably Memel with Germany and at least certain adjustments with Poland in Silesia and in the Corridor” - Fish, H., FDR: H., FDR: The Other Side of the Coin, Coin, 1976, p108 6 Germany after Versailles

9 A.J.P. Taylor’s view ... Danzig was the most justified of German grievances: a city of exclusively German population which manifestly wished to return to the Reich and which Hitler himself restrained only with difficulty… The destruction of Poland had been no part of his original project. On the contrary, he had wished to solve the question of Danzig so that Germany and Poland could remain on good terms...” Origin of 2nd  WW

8

Polish ‘corridor’

10 Polish border  The “Peace Makers” in Versailles granted most of the German land militarily conquered

 by Poland long after the truce in 1918 to the newly made state of Poland. Under the nonaggression treaty German newspapers were not allowed to report on Polish atrocities against the minority Germans, which led to the emigration of a million Germans.

11 Offer to Poland October 1938 • Guarantee of its boundaries, even to protect it against Soviet Russia. • Return of the German free State of Danzig, with road & rail connection • Plebiscite to be given to West Prussia. Poland gets open-sea port • Extend polish-German non-aggression pact Polish Response: a hundred thousand Germans h ad to flee to the woods, or, under shelling from Polish soldiers, over the borders. Between March and August more than 70.000 refugees had h ad to  be housed in German refugee camps & the aggression against Germans increased on a daily  basis.

12 British War-Guarantee The British war-guarantee of 31 March 1939 gave Poland carte blanche in its dealings with Germany. Poland intensified its persecutions of the German minority. Abductions beca me common, speaking German in public was proscribed, German associations and newspapers were suppressed, the German consul in Krakow was murdered, etc. This nullified the Munich agreement of September 1938 for Britain & Germany to work closely together to avoid war; also the Polish-German-Polish Declaration of non-aggression (1934).

13 Effect of British war-guarantee The British promised to wage war against Germany, if only Poland would succeed to get Germany into the war, even by aggression! This immediately escalated Poland’s rabid incitement against Germany. Polish newspapers demanded the occupation of Danzig, all of  east Prussia, in fact they advocated that Poland should push its border all the way to the Oder River, some again advocated the annexation of Berlin and even Hamburg William J. Scott, Deutsche Scott, Deutsche Staatszeitung , March 20, 2010

14 Poles demand war  “Poland wants war with Germany and Germany will not be able to avoid it even if she wants to.” - Poland’s President Edward Rydz-Smigly, Daily Rydz-Smigly, Daily Mail , August 6th, 1939.[26] The German minority had been disfranchised in the 1920s, and in the 1930s it was subjected to open terror, murder and rape, especially in the months preceding September 1939.

15 Polish terror attacks Terrorists begin murdering German civilians in large numbers. A British ex-Pat named William Joyce describes the events:

"On the nights of August 25 to August 31 inclusive, there occurred, besides innumerable attacks on civilians of German blood, 44 perfectly authenticated acts of armed violence ag ainst German official persons and property. These incidents took place either on the border or inside German territory. 16 Of all the the crimes of World War II, one never hears about the wholesale massacres that occurred in Poland just before the war. Thousands of German men, women and children were massacred in the most horrendous fashion by press-enraged mobs. Hitler decided to halt the slaughter and he rushed to the rescue. Young German boys, when captured by the Poles, were castrated. - Léon Degrelle Since dawn today, we are shooting back ... A. Hitler

17 War   August 30th: Poland orders total mobilization - under the Protocols of the League of Nations this is equal to a declaration of war. Polish troops were numerically stronger  September 1940: Germany reclaimed the pre-Versailles German areas given to Poland. H’s speech at Danzig harped on o n the sadistic treatment of Poles to the German minorities: ‘Tens of thousands were deported, maltreated, killed in the most bestial fashion.’

18 Showered with flowers  Danzig, September 1939: ‘It was like this this everywhere.. in the Rhineland, in Vienna, Vienna, in the Sudetan territories, territories, and in Memel: do you still doubt the mission mission of the Fuhrer?’ - Comment by Schmundt, Irving Hitler’s Irving Hitler’s War p.226 War p.226

20 France invades Germany The French invade Germany on September 7th, 1939, advancing 8 km before stopping.

21 German peace offers Hitler: "I have always expressed to France my desire to to bury forever our ancient enmity and  bring together these two nations, both of which have such glorious pasts. ....I have devoted no less effort to the achievement of Anglo-German understanding, no, more than that, of an AngloGerman friendship. At no time and in no n o place have I ever eve r acted contrary to British interests...Why should this war in the West be fought?“ 6th October . Two German peace offers to Britain came in October 1939, after defeating Poland, and in July 1940, after defeating France, both spurned. - Captain R. Grenfell, Unconditional Hatred, German War guilt and  the Future of Europe, NY Europe, NY 1954, 201

19 Map of ‘Greater Germany’, 1939

22 Admiration for Britain During and after the war, it was hard to obtain an English translation of Hitler’s Mein Hitler’s Mein Kampf, ’a Kampf, ’a central theme of which was Hitler’s admiration for and longing for friendship with Great Britain’ - Captain Arthur Ramsey, The Nameless War , p. 49 (in jail through the war.) ‘From the outset, the leader of the resurgent German nation and Nazi party was a self-confessed Anglophile whose primary foreign policy aim was an alliance with with Britain.’ - Richard Milton,  Best of Enemies, Enemies, 2007, p.169

23 An Anglophile  Early 1940, Rudolf Hess once enquired, ‘Mein Fuhrer, are your views about the British still the same? Hitler gloomily sighed, sighed, ‘ If only the British knew how little I little I ask of them! How he liked to leaf through the glossy pages of The Tatler, studying the British aristocracy in their natural habitat! Once he was overheard o verheard to say, ‘Those are valuable specimens – those are the ones I am going to make peace with.’ David Irving, Hitler’s Irving, Hitler’s war.

24 Invasion of UK? ‘A but faintly-imagined and conditional German plan to invade Britain in the summer of 1940’ Sir Basil Liddell Hart, The Revolution in Warfare, Warfare, 1946, pp.212-222 (see also his History his History of the nd   1970, pp.93-6) 2  World War  1970,  "the discovery.. that at no time did this man (Hitler) pose or intend a real threat to Britain or the Empire.” – David Irving, foreword to his book The Warpath (1978) Warpath (1978)

25 Who wanted another war? The war of 1939 was ‘less wanted by nearly everybody than almost any other war in history.’ A.J.P. Taylor

27 A Reason Reason for War  "Germany becomes too powerful. We have to crush it." - Winston Churchill November 1936 speaking to US - General Robert E. Wood The Churchill pressure group The Focus was established in 1936 by Sir Waley Cohen (Chair of  the Board of Jewish Deputies) who gave fifty thousand pounds. ‘The purpose was – the tune that Churchill had to play was – fight Germany’ – David Irving.

28 Reasons for War – 2 "This war is an English war and its goal is the destruction of Germany."  - Churchill, Autumn 1939 broadcast "You must understand that this war is not against Hitler or National Socialism, but against the strength of the German people, which is to be smashed once and for all, regardless of whether it is in the hands of Hitler or a Jesuit priest." - Churchill (Emrys Hughes in Winston Churchill - His Career in War and Peace, Peace, page 145)

29 Reasons for War - 3 “The war was not just a matter of elimination of fascism in Germany, but rather obtaining German sales markets” Churchill, March March 1946 "Germany’s unforgivable crime before WW2 was its attempt to loosen its economy out of the world trade system and to build up an independent exchange system from which the worldfinance couldn’t profit anymore." -Churchill, The Second World War   - Bern, 1960.

30 Churchill elected Churchill ousts Chamberlain as Prime Minister on May 10th 1940, and next day the city-bombing  begins. ‘This raid on the night of May 11 th , 1940, although although in itself itself trivial, was was an epoch-marking  epoch-marking  event since it was the first deliberate breach of the fundamental rule of civilised warfare that  hostilities must only be waged against enemy combatant forces. Veale Advance Veale Advance to Barbarism, The Development of Total War ,1970, ,1970, 170 For 12th May, War Cabinet minutes note on ‘Bombing Policy,’ that the Prime Minister was ‘no longer bound by our previously-held scruples as to initiating “unrestricted” air warfare.’

31 City bombing in WW2 ‘ … the almost universal belief that Hitler started the indiscriminate bombing of civilians, whereas it was started by the directors of British strategy, as some of the more honest among them have boasted.’ - A.J.P. Tayler   , Origins of 2nd  World War,1972, War,1972, 16. The first carpet bombing of a German city was in the night from 15 to 16 May 1940 in Duisburg; followed by repeated air attacks on German cities - bombing of Hamburg on May 16th.

32 What was the point? Churchill, May 13th 1940: You ask, what is our aim? aim? I can answer in one word. word. It is victory,  victory at all costs.’

33 Dunkirk: May 1940 "He (Hitler) then astonished us by speaking with admiration of the British Empire, of the necessity for its existence, and of the civilization that Britain had brought into the world. ....He compared the British Empire with the Catholic Church saying they were both essential elements of stability in the world. He said that all he wanted from Britain was that she should acknowledge Germany's position on the Continent. The return of Germany's colonies would be desirable but not essential, and he would even offer to support Britain with troops if she should  be involved in difficulties anywhere.“ - General Gunther von Blumentritt, at Dunkirk.

34 At Dunkirk - 2 “The blood of every single Englishman is too valuable to be shed,” Hitler told his friend Frau Troost. “Our two people belong together racially and traditionally – this is and always has be en my aim even if our generals can’t grasp it.” - Patrick Buchanan,The Buchanan, The Unnecessary War, 2008,  p.326.

35 Strategic Bombing Initiated ‘ Because Because we were doubtful about abou t the psychological effect of the distortion of the truth that it was we who started the strategic bombing offensive, we have shrunk from giving our great decision of May 11th 1940 the publicity which it deserved. That surely was a mistake.’- J.M. Spaight, Assist. Sec. to the Air Ministry, Bombing Ministry, Bombing Vindicated 1944.

36 German desire desire for for peace  ‘Hitler assuredly did not want the mutual bombing to go on. … Again and again the German official reports applauded the reprisal element in the actions of the Luftwaffe … ‘If you stop  bombing us, we’ll stop bombing you.’ - Spaight, Bombing Spaight, Bombing Vindicated, 1944 43. 1944 43.

37 Peace offer June 1940  June 1940: Luftwaffe drop "peace leaflets" over London with "an appeal to "reason". Hitler: ‘I o f the sacrifices it will claim. can see no reason why this war must go on.  I am grieved to think of I should like to avert them. As for my own people, I know that millions of German men, young and old alike, are burning with the desire to settle accounts with the enemy who for the second time has declared war upon us for no reason whatever.’ Irving: ‘The crucial moment when he [Churchill] managed to kill this peace offensive in England was July 1940’

38 Praise for Albion  ‘England has always possessed whatever armament she happened to need. She always fought with the weapons which success demanded. demanded . She fought with mercenaries as long as mercenaries sufficed; but she reached down into the precious blood of the whole nation when only such a sacrifice could bring victory; but the determination for victory, the tenacity and ruthless pursuit of this struggle, remained unchanged.’ Hitler, Mein Hitler, Mein Kampf,1925 39 From 11 May to 6 September  July 20: Prime minister Winston Churchill hears of latest German peace offer (US-to-Berlin decode) & instructs Lord Halifax to block it. He then asks Bomber Command if they can do a ‘savage attack upon Berlin.’ August 24: German planes by mistake hit East Ea st London. H. issues command that any aircrew that drops bombs on London will be severely reprimanded, with only the RAF, dockyards, etc. e tc. as targets. August 26: a hundred heavy bombers sent to hit Berlin September 4: (after 7 raids) raids) Hitler formulates another peace offer => Victor Mallet in Stockholm, who replies he is ‘not allowed’ to hear it. September 6: Luftwaffe bomb London - David Irving video, ‘Churchill’s War’

40 No peace deal ‘The War Cabinet instructed Mallet to ignore the message. But it is the clearest indication that Hitler’s words in Mein Kampf were not mere rhetoric. He believed profoundly that an Anglo-German alliance was essential and was prepared to go the last mile to try to conclude such an agreement. Now he was compelled to realise that there would be no negotiated peace.’ Richard Milton, Best Milton, Best of Enemies, 2007 Enemies, 2007 p.222.

41 ‘The Blitz’ On 25 August, 81 bombers made night raids over Berlin, then on 6th September the Luftwaffe replied. Only after six surprise attacks upon Berlin in the previous fortnight did the Blitz begin, and thus Germany justifiably called it a reprisal. ‘The British people were not permitted to find out that the Government could have stopped the German raids at any time merely by stopping the raids on Germany.’ -Professor Arthur Butz. The Butz. The th  Hoax of the 20  Century, 1976,  Century, 1976, 70

42 Image: The Blitz

43 November 1940 peace offer Via the Pope: •  Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium and France to be independent free states,

• the political independence and national na tional identity of a ‘Polish state’ to be restored  • Czechoslovakia would ‘not be prevented from developing her national character’  • Some German colonies restored, etc. • Greater European economic solidarity to be pursued   ‘A peace offer offer so generous that it left left most of Britain’s war aims sounding sounding utterly hollow’ –  Martin Allen, Himmler’s Allen, Himmler’s Secret War, 2005, p.100

44 Two million tons “Many of the most beautiful cities of Europe and the world were systematically pounded into nothingness, often during the last weeks of the war, among them: Wuerzburg, Hildesheim, Darmstadt, Kassel, Nürnberg, Braunschweig.” - Dr Wesserle, Wesserle, The Journal of Historical   Review, 1981,  Review, 1981, vol. 2, 381-384.

45 The 1:20 ratio, ratio, tons of bombs Anglo-American strategic bombers dropped 2690 kilotons of bombs on Europe (1,350kt on Germany, 590kt France, 370 kt Italy, etc), while Germany dropped 74 kt of bombs including V-1 and V-2 rockets on Britain in WWII: a mere 5%, or one-twentieth as much - Dr Wesserle The  Journal of Historical Review, 1981, Review, 1981, vol. 2, 381-384.

46 Warsaw bombing – a comparison ‘In fact the bombardment of Warsaw did not begin until September 26, 1939, after all the military niceties had been observed: warning leaflets dropped o n to the civilian population, open routes provided for the Polish civilians to leave before the timed hour of bombardment, a formal ultimatum to the commandant of the fortress Warsaw to capitulate before the bombardment  began, which was rejected’. Irving, Hitler’s Irving, Hitler’s War , 1977, 2001, 239

Select Biblio WW1 Barnes, Harry Elmer, The Genesis of the World War an Introduction to the Problem of War  Guilt, 1926

Steiner, Rudolf The Karma of Untruthfulness: Secret Societies, the Media and Preparations Preparations for  the Great War  December  December 1916 lectures, 1988,2005. Milton, Richard Best Richard Best of Enemies Britain and Germany: 100 years of Truth and Lies 2007 Lies 2007 Ross, Stewart Halsey, Propaganda Halsey, Propaganda for War, How the United States Was Conditioned to Fight  the Great War of 1914-18, 1914-18, 2009

Docherty, Gerry and MacGregor, Jim Hidden Jim Hidden History The Secret Origins of the First World World War, 2013.

WW2

Hoggan, David, The Forced War , (online) 1961,1989. Buchanan, Patrick Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War, How Britain lost its empire and  the West lost the world , 2008. Bradberry, Benton, The Myth of German Villainy 2012. Wallendy, Uno The Truth for Germany (online), 2012 King, Mark , The Bad War The truth Never Mentioned about World War 2. 2015.

Postscript: Will of the Warmongers ·

(ww2)

Harry Elmer Barnes (1889-1968)  Blasting the Historical Historical Blackout, 1963: Blackout, 1963:

‘In no country has the historical blackout been more intense and effective than in Great Britain. Here it has been ingeniously christened The Iron Curtain of Discreet Silence. Virtually nothing has been written to reveal the truth about British responsibility for the Second World War and its disastrous results. The primary and direct responsibility for the European war, which grew into the Second World War, was almost solely that of  Great Britain and the British war group, made up of both Conservatives and Labourites. If Britain had not gratuitously given Poland a blank cheque, which was not needed in the slightest to assure British security, Poland surely might not have risked a war with Germany. Nevertheless, there would still have been no justification for British intervention in such a war or for the provocation of a European war... The fact is that the only real offer of security which Poland received in 1938 and 1939 emanated from Hitler. He offered to guarantee the boundaries laid down in the Versailles Treaty against every other country. Even the Weimar Republic had not for a moment taken this into consideration. Whatever one may think of Hitler's government or foreign policy, no doubt exists on this  point; his proposals to Poland Poland in 1938/39 were reasonable and just and the most moderate of all which which he made during the six six years of his efforts to revise the Versailles Treaty by peaceful means… means …

·

Liddell Hart (1895-1969)  History of the Second Second World War, 1970:

‘The precise effect of the Mutual Assistance Pact was to give Poland a clear signal that aggression and belligerency was tolerable and a warning to Germany that any retaliation would be met by force…

The last thing Hitler wanted was to produce another great war. His people, and particularly his generals, were profoundly fearful of any such risk - the experiences of World War One had scarred their minds.

·

David Hoggan (1923-1988) The (1923-1988) The Forced War , 1989:

‘The secret British shift to a war policy in October 1938, when Halifax took over control of British foreign policy from Chamberlain, was followed by the public proclamation of this new policy by Chamberlain himself at Birmingham on March 17, 1939. This culminated, in turn, in the launching of the new "crusade" against Germany on September 3, 1939

Halifax in London succeeded in imposing a deliberate war policy on the British Government in 193 8-1939 despite the fact that most of the leading official British experts on Germany favored a policy of Anglo-German friendship. Beck in Warsaw adopted a  position of full cooperation cooperation with the war plans of Halifax despite the the numerous warnings he received received from Poles aghast at the  prospect of witnessing their their country hurtle down the road road to destruction. Many Many efforts were made by German, German, French, Italian, Italian, and other European leaders to avert the catastrophe, but these efforts eventually failed, and the Halifax war policy, with the secret  blessings of President Roosevelt Roosevelt and Marshal Marshal Stalin, emerged emerged triumphant. The British Government, after October 1938, repeatedly evaded acceptance of any of the commitments in the Bohemian area hich had been suggested at Munich. The British Government, according to both Chamberlain and Halifax, had no right to be consulted about the Hitler-Hacha treaty of March 15, 1939, which represented, as Professor A.J.P. Taylor put it, a conservative solution of the Bohemia-Moravian Bohemia-Moravian problem. The actual British foreign policy moves after March 31, 1939, were directed unrelentingly toward war. Everything possible was done to undermine several excellent opportunities for a negotiated settlement of the German-Polish dispute, and for the negotiation of a new Czech settlement based on international guarantees. Instead of working for a satisfactory agreement with Germany -- Hitler was willing to be moderate and reasonable in dealing with both the Polish and the Czech questions -- Halifax concentrated on intimidating Italy and bullying France because they both favored peace instead of war. The Polish Government as advised by Halifax to reject negotiations with Germany, and Warsaw was constantly assured that British support would be available for any war. The numerous requests of the German Government for mediation between Germany and Poland, or for a direct Anglo-German agreement, were either answered with deceptions or ignored. A maximum effort was made to present the American leaders with a distorted picture of the actual situation in Europe. All of these British moves had their roots in the obsolete, traditional policy of the balance of power.  Nevertheless, there there was no time before the British declaration declaration of war on September September 3, 1939, when Hitler would would have opposed a negotiated solution with Poland. An indication of this was shown by his favorable response to the Italian conference plan on September 2, 1939, and his willingness at that time to consider an immediate armistice in Poland. His peace policy failed because the British Empire decided to challenge Germany before Hitler had completed his program of arriving at amicable understandings ith his immediate neighbors The motives of Halifax in 1939 were clearly derived from the ancient tradition of maintaining British superiority over the nations of Western and Central Europe. He had never questioned the role of his kinsman, Sir Edward Grey, in promoting World War I. Halifax did not propose to tolerate the existence in 1939 of a German Reich more prosperous and more influential than the Hohenzollern Empire which had been destroyed in 1918. It was for the prestige of Great Britain rather than for such mundane considerations as national security or immediate British interests that Halifax became a prop onent of war in 1938. The traditional British aim to dominate policy in Continental Europe was the underlying reason why the world experienced the horrors of World War II.’ - p. 288 & Conclusion

·

Jurgen Rieger (1946-09) justice4germans.c (1946-09) justice4germans.com om,, 2009

‘The four-power Munich agreement, signed in September 1938: an agreement by all parties that the Sudeten Germans rightfully  belonged "Heim ins Reich" Reich" (back home in the Reich.) In March March 1939 both the Slovaks and the Ruthenians Ruthenians declared independence, whereupon the Poles invaded Czechoslovakia and occupied the Olsa Region, which was populated by Poles. The Hungarians did the same, occupying the border areas that were populated by Hungarians.

Since Czechoslovakia had ceased to exist, its President Hacha flew to Berlin on 15 March 1939 and placed the remainder of his country under the protection of the Reich. The Reich then formed the Protectorate of Bohemia and Maeren, which provided for  exclusive Czech administration in all areas except military and foreign policy. Chamberlain condemned the "German invasion" [entry of German troops in Prague on 15 March 1939] in his Birmingham speech of 17 March 1939; and on 31 March 1939 he signed an agreement with the Polish government in which Great Britain  promised to support Poland in the the event of war. It is irrelevant whether Poles or Germans attacked the Gleiwitz transmitting transmitting station (whoever reads the White Book of the German-Polish war will find countless undisputed murders and assaults committed by the Poles in the weeks and months  preceding 1 September 1939) "Poland wants war with Germany and Germany will not be able to avoid it, even if it wants to." - Rydz-Smigly, Chief inspector  of the Polish army in a public speech in front of Polish officers (In June 1939,) The fact that Chamberlain, knowing of the Polish, French and American desire for war, gave a free hand to Polish war policies and did not urge Poland to accept the moderate German demands can be explained only by the fact that he also wanted war on 1

September 1939.

Another indication of this is the fact that in Britain the evening edition of the newspaper DAILY MAIL for 31 August 1939 was confiscated. The edition had carried the story of Germany's proposals concerning the Polish Corridor as well as Poland's [27] response, which was general mobilization. The newspaper was compelled to publish a different evening edition. Following 15 March 1939, Roosevelt exerted strong pressure on the British government to "finally exert opposition" against "Nazi tyranny" or else he would apply methods of coercion against Great Britain. It is impossible to determine precisely what threats he made, since their correspondence is still off-limits to historians (Note: According to the usually very well informed Washington journalists Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen "the President warned that Britain could expect no more support, moral or material through the sale of airplanes, if the Munich policy continued.") September 1, 1939: Mussolini proposes a suspension of ho stilities and the immediate immediate convening of a Conference of the Big Powers, Poland included, to discuss terms for a peaceful settlement. Germany, France and Poland immediately accept Mussolini's  proposals. Britain categorically categorically rejects rejects any negotiations negotiations and demands withdrawal of German troops from all occupied Polish territory (30 kilometers deep). Note: Britain does not consult with Warsaw before making its decision.’

·

Steve F., Background to the Munich Munich Agreement:

‘The dismemberment of Germany following the Great War meant that the Sudetenland (Bohemia and Moravia), part of Germany for 700 years and with a population of over 3 million Germans, were moved -- against their wishes -- out of their h omeland to  become part of a newly-created newly-created country, populated populated mainly by Czechs and Slovaks, which was to to be called Czecho-Slovakia. Czecho-Slovakia.

The Sudeten Germans suffered greatly under Czech rule. On March 4th, 1919, public meetings calling for self determination ere brutally broken up and 52 German civilians were murdered. Lord Rothermere described Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia as a 'swindle.'

Conditions imposed upon the Sudeten-Germans were so harsh that during 1919, 600,000 were forced to leave their settlements settlements of  centuries. Throughout the ensuing y ears, the Czech President, M. Benes, saw to it that conditions became so intolerable that even England and France felt it necessary to concede this injustice of Versailles and agreed to its return to Germany.

"The worst offence was the subjection of over three million Germans to Czech rule." -- H.N Brailsford, Leading left wing commentator

The Czech administration which wanted the German territory but not its population, agreed, but refused to do so and instead  began a reign of terror aimed aimed at driving the German German population over the borders into Hitler's Germany Germany in a program that has since  been termed ethnic cleansing.

When under the terms of the Versailles Treaty, a large part of Germany and its German population was awarded to Poland, so  began an anti-German racist racist pogrom resulting in in widespread murder and mayhem mayhem resulting in over a million million Germans being being 'ethnically cleansed' from their homelands of centuries. Hitler's Germany could no longer act as bystanders to the grim unfolding tragedy. When German troops re-entered their former  territory, the Sudetenland, there was was rejoicing in the streets.’ - CODOH page ‘Hitler’s Peace offers vs Unconditional surrender’, April 2016, in the WW2 section, quoted with kind permission.

· Udo Walendy Walendy (1927 -) Who Started World War Two? truth for a war-torn world, 2014. Permission to quote kindly given by Castle Hill Press. ‘Poland was not going to wait for the outcome of the Versailles Peace conference that was stretching over many months and, instead, used the armistice of Germany to occupy the Posen region and parts of western Prussia … The Versailles Peace conference accepted from Poland the fait accompli, with the stipulation, however, that the transfer of territory was made

dependent on the Polish obligation of having to guarantee to the German and Jewish minorities far-reaching independence and the preservation of their national culture and traditional way of life’ (p.134) Clearly that did not happen so even under the terms of the Versailles Treaty the Polish occupation of that land was unlawful. At Versailles, the British Prime Minister Minister Lloyd George had remarked: “I tell you once more, we would never have thought of  giving to Poland a province that had not been Polish for the last 900 years… The proposal of the Polish Commission that we should place 2,100,000 Germans under the control of a people which is of a different religion and which has never proved its capacity for stable self-government throughout its history, must, in my judgment, lead sooner or later to a new war in the East of  Europe...” Compare this with Woodrow Wilson’s words of 7 April 1919: “France’s only real interest interest in Poland was to weaken Germany by giving the Poles areas to which they had no claim.” The U.S. Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, remarked on 8 May 1919: “Do examine the treaty and you will find that whole populations, against their will, were delivered into the power of those ho hated them, while their economic resources were snatched away and handed over to others.’ - p.134-6  NK: This unfair Versailles Versailles treaty was was not the cause of a world war. It was the cause only of a local local conflict between between Poland and Germany - It was the British will, that transformed a local European conflict, here deemed by Lloyd George to have been inevitable, into a world war – or, such has here been my argument.

[1]  See N.K., ‘On the Avoidability of WW1’ Inconvenient WW1’  Inconvenient History, History, 2011,3, online. [2]  For this letter by US diplomat and presidential advisor Colonel E.House, concerning the pacific philosophy of the Kaiser, after a visit he paid in July 1914, see Buchanan, The Unnecessary War , p.22. [3]  Grey was Britain’s Foreign Secretary 1905-16 and Poincaré was the President of France 1913-20. [4]  Bertrand Russell, Autobiography, Russell, Autobiography, Vol.  Vol. 1, 1967, p.239. [5]  ‘Britain and Belgium had been deeply involved in joint military preparations against Germany for at least eight years.’  Hidden History, p.325. History, p.325. [6] Harry Elmer Elmer Barnes, The Genesis of the World War an Introduction to the Problem of War Guilt , 1926, p.211 (2013 online):  pressure from the Kaiser Kaiser upon Austria for ‘suspension of military military activities activities and the opening of negotiations negotiations with Russia’ Russia’ as th starting on 27  July. [7]  Hidden History: History: “Germany was the last of the continental powers to take that irrevocable step [of mobilization]” p.321. [8]  Loreburn, 1919, pp.16. [9]  British documents on the the origins of the war 1898-1914, Vol 1898-1914, Vol XI, HMSO 1926. [10]  Hidden History, History, p.321. [11]  Ibid, p.322. [12]  Steiner, Karma  Steiner, Karma,, pp.84-5 [13]  Ross, p.42. [14]  ‘The Bankers secretly devised a scheme by which their obligations could be met by fiat money (so-called treasury notes)’ to  pay for the war: ‘The decision decision to use treasury treasury notes to fulfil the bankers’ liabilities liabilities was made as early early as July 25 The first first treasury th notes were run off the presses …on the following Tuesday July 28 , at a time when most politicians believed that Britain would stay out of the war.’ Carroll Quigley in Tragedy and Hope, a History of the World in Our Time, 1966, Time, 1966, p.317 (Thanks to J.W. for  this reference). [15]  Quoted in Steiner, Karma Steiner,  Karma of Untruthfulness, Untruthfulness, p.18. Brandes was Danish. [16]  J.M. Spaight, Bombing Spaight, Bombing Vindicated , 1944, 60; N.K. How N.K. How Britain Initiated Initiated City Bombing, CODOH. Bombing, CODOH. [17]  N.K., Breaking  N.K., Breaking the Spell, the Holocaust Myth and Reality 2014 Reality 2014 [18]  William J. Scott Deutsche Scott  Deutsche Staatszeitung , March 20, 2010 [19]  ihr.org, Mark Weber, ‘President Roosevelt's Campaign to Incite War in Europe, The Secret Polish Documents.’ [20]

http://tomatobubble.com/id570.html William http://tomatobubble.com/id570.html  William Joyce Twilight over England  [21]  On mobilisation as legally signifying war, see Hidden see  Hidden History, p.278. History, p.278. [22] N.K.,, [22]  N.K.,, The “Ministry of Truth” at Britain's National Archives: The Attempt to Discredit Martin Allen, Inconvenient Allen,  Inconvenient History, History, 2014, 6. [23]  ‘… sixteen German peace offers in the first two years of the Second world War’ – Martin Allen, Himmler’s Allen, Himmler’s Secret War, the covert peace negotiations of Heinrich Himmler, 2014, p.55.

[24]  But see also the British account of 2001: ‘The miracle’ of Dunkirk’, in Double in Double Standards, The Rudolf Hess cover-up, cover-up, by Lynn Pickett, Clive Prince and Stephen Prior, pp.116-120. [25]  See refs 21,22. [26] th  There is a problem with this widely-quoted remark, that 6  August was a Sunday: there was no Sunday edition of the Mail. the Mail. [27]  I have not been able to verify this, NK

Table of Contents [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27]

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It’s A Trap! The Wave Of Repercussions As The Middle East Fights “The Last War”
TOPICS:Brandon SmithForeign PolicyHistoryMiddle EastMilitary
OCTOBER 11, 2023

By Brandon Smith

Few people are familiar with a little event around 1200 BC called the Bronze Age Collapse in the region known as the Levant (now known as the Middle East). Most folks are taught that history and progress travel in a straight line and that each generation improves upon the culture and innovations of previous generations. This delusion is constructed around a Smithsonian-influenced view of the past. In reality, history tends to go in a circle, or a spiral, with innovation leading to ease, ease leading to laziness and corruption, and corruption leading to weakness and collapse.

Over and over again, humanity reaches for Elysium on Earth only to be slapped back down. The survivors then build grass huts on top of the ruins of the old empires and they start over from scratch.  Why does the Bronze Age catastrophe matter?  Obviously, because history tends to rhyme.

The Levant at this time was rich with civilization and trade, composed of a host of kingdoms that represented the known world including the Egyptians, Babylonians, Minoans, Mycenaeans, Hittites, etc.  They had vast economic networks, agriculture, industry and written libraries. The proximity of the kingdoms allowed for such extensive trade relations that this period is often referred to by modern historians as the first “globalized economy” (sound familiar?).


What took centuries to build was destroyed in a single generation by a series of disasters. A “mega-drought” caused kingdoms without consistent water resources to lose agricultural production leading to widespread famine and disease (yes, the climate can and does change dramatically regardless of human carbon footprint). Trade was disrupted by internal disputes, and a mysterious invasion of a group of roaming raiders called the “sea people” is documented as a primary factor in collapse.

The Sea People attacked numerous kingdoms, but many of them were also refugees flooding into the region. They disrupted cultures and economies and dragged a number of empires into the dust. This all happened in less than 30 years. Sadly, because only the elites of these civilizations were able to read and write, languages and historical documentation were lost.

This initiated a dark age which lasted for centuries. Humanity was set back, essentially to zero, while scratching and surviving among temples and pyramids of past generations. They must have looked up at those decaying marvels of architecture from hundreds of years ago and wondered “What the hell happened to us?”

Not everything perished, of course. The Egyptian dynasties were in decline, but they managed to hold together far better than their counterparts across the Levant.  However, the event represented a setback to human knowledge that was detrimental. One might suggest that if the Bronze Age Collapse never occurred we might be a space borne species traveling the stars by now.

Then again, maybe these cultures were so corrupt that they needed to fail so that something better could be built in their place?

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What does any of this have to do with the state of the Middle East today? The smart readers out there surely see what I’m getting at. The intricate relationships and trade mechanisms of the Bronze Age led to great wealth and prosperity, but they were terribly fragile. That same interdependency resulted in their demise as they tumbled like dominoes on top of each other.

The globalization and collectivist war mongering of today is leading to a similar worldwide implosion. Our irrational ties to foreign entanglements and economies could very well destroy civilization again. Consider what are we about to see as the Israel/Palestine war unfolds…

Multiple Nations Dragged Into The Conflict

If you were wondering what the “October surprise” was going to be, well, now you know.  I will make my position on this situation clear – I don’t care about either side.  I care about innocent civilians, but other than that the war is irrelevant.  I am an American and I care about America. The same goes for Ukraine and Russia. Their wars are not our wars, and I am highly suspicious every time our political leaders try to lure us into choosing a side when foreigners start shooting each other. To summarize:  All wars are banker wars.

The Israelis enjoy our money but they have a history of proven elicit operations to lure us into war (USS Liberty, anyone?). The Palestinians and most of the Muslim world despise the West and Christianity in general (and I don’t really care who started it, the fact remains that our cultures are completely incompatible and this will never change).  Just because we happen to find common ground on fighting back against the insane trans agenda does not mean I’m willing to accept draconian Sharia Law in my community.

Both sides use tactics that deliberately target civilians. I’m not talking about collateral damage like we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan, I’m talking about groups that are consciously and brazenly engaged in plans for genocide. Bottom line? There are no “good guys” to join with. It’s a complete sh*t show of ancient tribal nonsense that Westerners should stay away from.

For those who disagree, ask yourselves this – Are you truly willing to go pick up a rifle and fly to Israel or Gaza to fight and die for either side?  If so, then go do it and stop demanding others do it for you.  If not, then shut up.

But here’s what’s going to happen:  the establishment will seek to force Americans and Europeans into these wars regardless.  The corporate media and some political leaders are already suggesting that the recent full-scale attack on Israel was planned by governments outside of Gaza. Some are accusing Iran, and others accuse Lebanon. From the extensive amount of footage of the attack that I have examined, I have no doubt that someone other than the Palestinians orchestrated the event. The tactics were far too advanced and far too coordinated; the Palestinians have never been all that smart when it comes to military strategy.

Who drafted the attack is another question entirely. So far there are a lot of rumors but no hard evidence leading to any specific governments. Another big question is, how did the Palestinians manage to organize all of this and execute the invasion WITHOUT Israeli intel services knowing about it? Mossad is known to be one of the most intrusive and pervasive covert agencies in the world, yet they were caught completely off guard by this unprecedented attack?  I think not.

I’m reminded of the events of 9/11 and the strange series of intelligence failures that preceded it. I’m also reminded of the lies, propaganda and the reactionary response which led to two decades of meaningless war.

I’m going to call it here – in a couple of weeks we will hear reports that many of the soldiers involved in the incursion were NOT Palestinian. They will claim some of them are from Iran, Syria, Lebanon, etc. There will be intel that says Iran was a major backer of the plan (The Wall Street Journal already claims this is the case, but they have not provided any compelling proof, yet).

A US carrier strike group is on the way to the region now, and this is just the beginning. Europeans will be pressured to go to war, American conservatives in particular will be waterboarded with propaganda telling us that an “attack on Israel is an attack on the US.” It will be a lot like the rhetoric Neo-cons and leftists used during the initial invasion of Ukraine, but multiplied by a thousand. To be clear, both Biden and Trump have been rattling sabers and testing the waters of war, so don’t think that we can avoid this simply by voting.

Multiple Fronts

Israel is going to pound Gaza into gravel, there’s no doubt about that.  A ground invasion will meet far more resistance than the Israelis seem to expect, but Israel controls the air and Gaza is a fixed target with limited territory.  The problem for them is not the Palestinians, but the multiple war fronts that will open up if they do what I think they are about to do (attempted sanitization).  Lebanon, Iran and Syria will all immediately engage and Israel will not be able to fight them all – Hell, the Israelis got their asses handed to them by Lebanon alone in 2006.

This will result in inevitable demands for US/EU intervention.

East vs West

Depending on the extent of the Western reaction, the BRICS nations may be compelled to get involved. This may not be on a kinetic level, but there is a chance. Russia has strategic security treaties with Iran and Syria. China has numerous economic interests and influence in the region as the world’s largest importer/exporter.

These nations might retaliate with the same kind of financial warfare that the West used against Russia – with China and the BRICS cutting off the dollar as the world reserve currency. This would add to the crippling inflation we are already experiencing.

Terror Attacks And False Flags

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If you thought things might be eerily quiet on the terrorism front lately, that’s now over. I would be shocked if we made it another six months without multiple attacks tied back to Islamic groups. Some of them will be real and some of them will be staged, and telling which is which will be difficult.

The thing is, wide open borders in the West have made this far more likely and the establishment knows it. In my opinion they WELCOMED IT. If they can get at least one crazy Muslim to shoot up a strip mall or blow up a football stadium, they will have all the leverage they need to con Americans into another ground war in the Middle East.  Do we need to “fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here?”  That’s garbage thinking.  We should not be letting them over here in the first place.

Europe in particular is playing with fire. National governments and the EU have invited tens-of-millions of these people to their doorsteps and now they face a serious conundrum. There are Sharia Law communities all over Europe, there are millions of military-age Muslim men with every opportunity to do great harm. And, there are millions of woke leftists currently cheering them on, thinking that this is some form of “decolonization.”

Closure Of The Strait Of Hormuz, Skyrocketing Oil Prices

I have been warning about this scenario for many years; it was only a matter of time before tensions with Iran gave them a rationale to close the Strait Of Hormuz and shut down 30% of all oil exports from the Middle East to the rest of the world. Keep in mind, Europe is suffering from extensive energy inflation, in part because of the economic crisis and also because of sanctions against Russia.

Biden has been trying to hide inflation by dumping oil from the strategic reserves onto the market, but now those reserves are the lowest they have been since 1983.  Conveniently, this happened right before the strike on Israel. Our reserves are depleted as we go to war. Oil prices and gasoline prices will explode if Iran is implicated in the Israel attack. Iran will run a few giant oil tankers into the Hormuz, sink them, and make the strait impassable for months. Don’t be surprised of we see $200 per barrel oil next year, which will translate to around $7 per gallon gas or higher for much of the US.

A Push For A New Draft

Let’s be honest, current US recruitment numbers are a joke and the wokification of our military is making it weaker by the month. No American citizen with a legit warrior mindset or combat aptitude is going to join that circus freak show voluntarily. The establishment will try to regale conservatives and patriots with visions of “fighting the good fight for family and country” but most will not buy in. With attempts to ignite multiple fronts against Russia, China and the Middle East, they will start talking about a new draft system.

My belief is that this will fail miserably and would start a civil war rather than fill the ranks of the Army or Marines, but they may have a scheme to deal with this outcome…

Is This The Real Reason Why US Officials Are Encouraging The Migrant Invasion?

The reality is, America has its own invasion to deal with.  During the Bronze Age Collapse certain empires (like Egypt) survived using an odd tactic – instead of fighting off the invading hordes of refugees, nomads and sea people, they HIRED them and inducted them into important positions within their military. Corrupt authoritarian rulers ultimately found that they faced more of a threat from their own starving peasants than they did from the outsiders, so they joined with them to put down local rebellions.

This might not be as useful in Europe, but in America I wonder if this was the intention all along; to bring in millions of military-age foreigners with little sympathy for the existing culture, then in the midst of collapse and conflict offer them automatic citizenship and benefits if they join the military. Not on the small scale the federal government has going today, but on an enormous scale the likes of which we have never seen.

Maybe the plan was always to leave the gates open and allow illegals to stroll in so that they could act as a mercenary contingent to fight in foreign wars or fight against American citizens should rebellion arise…


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Plan C

The timing of the conflict in Israel is incredibly beneficial to globalists, and this might explain Israel’s bizarre intel failure. Just as US and British leaders had prior knowledge of a potential Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 but warned no one because they WANTED to compel Americans to fight in WWII, the Palestinian incursion serves a similar purpose.

The covid pandemic and mandates failed to get the desired result of a global medical tyranny. The war in Ukraine failed to get desired results as the warhawks’ demands for boots on the ground against Russia fell apart. Perhaps this is just Plan C?

The establishment seems particularly obsessed with convincing US conservatives and patriots to participate in the chaos; there are a number of Neo-cons and even a few supposed liberty media personalities calling for Americans to answer the call of blood in Israel. Some have described the coming conflagration as “the war to end all wars.”

I believe that the real war is yet to truly start, and that is the war to erase the globalists from existence. They want us to fight overseas in endless quagmires in the hopes we will die out. And when we do, there will be no one left to oppose them. It’s a predictable strategy, but its success is doubtful. Another interesting fact about the Bronze Age Collapse – the elites were some of the first groups to be wiped out after the system broke down.

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UnzReview
THOMAS DALTON • JUNE 1, 2013 • 11,200 WORDS • 333 COMMENTS • REPLY

In 2006, an inebriated Mel Gibson allegedly said this: “The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.” There followed the predicable storm of anti-anti-Semitism, ad hominem attacks, and various other slanders against Gibson’s character. But virtually no one asked the question: Is he right? Or rather this: To what degree could he be right?

Clearly Jews can’t be responsible for all the world’s wars, but might they have had a hand in many wars—at least amongst those countries in which they lived or interacted? Given their undeniable influence in those nations where they exceed even a fraction of a percent of the population, Jews must be responsible, to some degree, for at least some of what government does, both good and bad. Jews are often praised as brilliant managers, economists, and strategists, and have been granted seemingly endless awards and honors. But those given credit for their successes must also receive blame for their failures. And there are few greater failures in the lives of nations than war.

To begin to evaluate Gibson’s charge, I will look at the role Jews played in the two major wars of world history, World Wars I and II. But first I need to recap some relevant history in order to better understand the context of Jewish policy and actions during those calamitous events.

Historical Context

Have Jews played a disproportionate role in war and social conflict—a role typically not of peacemakers and reconcilers, but of instigators and profiteers? Let us very briefly review some historical evidence to answer this charge; it provides relevant insight into Jewish influences during both world wars.

As far back as the Book of Genesis, we find stories such as that of Joseph, son of Jacob, sold into slavery in Egypt. Joseph earns the favor of the Pharaoh and is elevated to a position of power. When a famine strikes, Joseph develops and implements a brutal policy of exploitation, leading Egyptian farmers to sell their land, animals, and ultimately themselves in exchange for food. Joseph himself survives unscathed, living out his days in “the land of Goshen,” with a life of luxury and ease—evidently as repayment for a job well done.[1]

Over time, Jews continued to build a reputation as rabble-rousers and exploiters. In 41 AD, Roman Emperor Claudius issued his Third Edict, condemning the Jews of Alexandria for abuse of privilege and sowing discord; he charged them with “fomenting a general plague which infests the whole world.” Eight years later he expelled them from Rome. As a result, the Jews revolted in Jerusalem in the years 66-70, and again in 115 and 132. Of that final uprising, Cassius Dio made the following observation—the first clear indication of Jews causing a major war:

Jews everywhere were showing signs of hostility to the Romans, partly by secret and partly overt acts… [M]any other nations, too, were joining them through eagerness for gain, and the whole earth, one might almost say, was being stirred up over the matter.[2]

Thus it was not without reason that notable Romans denounced the Jews—among these Seneca (“an accursed race”), Quintilian (“a race which is a curse to others”), and Tacitus (a “disease,” a “pernicious superstition,” and “the basest of peoples”).[3] Prominent German historian Theodor Mommsen reaffirmed this view, noting that the Jews of Rome were indeed agents of social disruption and decay: “Also in the ancient world, Judaism was an effective ferment of cosmopolitanism and of national decomposition.”[4]

Throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, their negative reputation persisted. John Chrysostom, Thomas Aquinas, and Martin Luther all condemned Jewish usury—a lending practice often trading on distress, and a frequent cause of social unrest. In the 1770s, Baron d’Holbach declared that “the Jewish people distinguished themselves only by massacres, unjust wars, cruelties, usurpations, and infamies.” He added that they “lived continually in the midst of calamities, and were, more than all other nations, the sport of frightful revolutions.”[5] Voltaire was struck by the danger posed to humanity by the Hebrew tribe; “I would not be in the least bit surprised if these people would not some day become deadly to the human race.”[6] Kant called them a “nation of deceivers,” and Hegel remarked that “the only act Moses reserved for the Israelites was…to borrow with deceit and repay confidence with theft.”[7]

Thus both empirical evidence and learned opinion suggest that Jews have, for centuries, had a hand in war, social strife, and economic distress, and have managed to profit thereby.[8] Being a small and formally disempowered minority everywhere, it is striking that they should merit even a mention in such events—or if they did, it should have been as the exploited, and not the exploiters. And yet they seem to have demonstrated a consistent ability to turn social unrest to their advantage. Thus it is not an unreasonable claim that they might even instigate such unrest, anticipating that they could achieve desired ends.

Jewish Advance in America and Elsewhere

The long history of Jewish involvement in social conflict has a direct bearing on both world wars. Consider their progressive influence in American government. Beginning in the mid-1800s, we find a number of important milestones. In 1845, the first Jews were elected to both houses of Congress: Lewis Levin (Pa.) to the House and David Yulee (Fla.) to the Senate. By 1887 they had their first elected governor, Washington Bartlett in California. And in 1889, Solomon Hirsch became the first Jewish minister, nominated by President Harrison as ambassador to the Ottoman Empire—which at that time controlled Palestine.

Overseas, trouble was brewing for the Jews in Russia. A gang of anarchists, one or two of whom were Jewish, succeeded in killing Czar Alexander II in 1881. This unleashed a multi-decade series of periodic pogroms, most minor but some killing multiple hundreds of Jews. Further difficulties for them came with the so-called May Laws of 1882, which placed restrictions on Jewish business practice and areas of residency within the “Pale of Settlement” in the western portion of the Russian empire.[9] Many Jews fled the Pale; of those heading west, Germany was their first stop.[10]

Even prior to the 1880s, Jewish influence in Germany was considerable. In the 1840s, both Bruno Bauer and Karl Marx wrote influential essays on Die Judenfrage (The Jewish Question). In 1850, composer Richard Wagner complained that Germans found themselves “in the position of fighting for emancipation from the Jews. The Jew is, in fact…more than emancipated. He rules…”[11] By 1878, Wagner declared that Jewish control of German newspapers was nearly total. A year later Wilhelm Marr decried “the victory of Jewry over Germandom”; he believed it self-evident that “without striking a blow…Jewry today has become the socio-political dictator of Germany.”[12]

The facts support these views. And with the influx of Russian and Polish Jews in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the situation got demonstrably worse. Sarah Gordon (1984: 10-14) cites the following impressive statistics:

Before the First World War, for example, Jews occupied 13 percent of the directorships of joint-stock corporations and 24 percent of the supervisory positions within these corporations. … [D]uring 1904 they comprised 27 percent of all lawyers, 10 percent of all apprenticed lawyers, 5 percent of court clerks, 4 percent of magistrates, and up to 30 percent of all higher ranks of the judiciary. … Jews were [also] overrepresented among university professors and students between 1870 and 1933. For example, in 1909-1910…almost 12 percent of instructors at German universities were Jewish… [I]n 1905-1906 Jewish students comprised 25 percent of the law and medical students… The percentage of Jewish doctors was also quite high, especially in large cities, where they sometimes were a majority. … [I]n Berlin around 1890, 25 percent of all children attending grammar school were Jewish…

For all this, Jews never exceeded 2% of the German population. The public accepted the foreigners with a remarkable degree of tolerance, and more or less allowed them to dominate certain sectors of German society. There were no legal constraints, and violent attacks were rare. But the Germans would come to regret such liberal policies.

The other important factor at that time was the emergence of Zionism. Formally established by Theodor Herzl in 1897, its basic principles were laid out in his book Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State). He argued that the Jews would never be free from persecution as long as they were foreigners everywhere, and thus they needed their own state. A number of locations were discussed, but by the time of the first meeting of the World Zionist Organization in 1897, the movement had settled on Palestine. This, however, was problematic because the region at that time was under control of the Ottoman Empire, and was populated primarily by Muslim and Christian Arabs. Somehow, the Zionist Jews would have to wrest control of Palestine away from the Ottoman Turks and then drive out the Arabs. It was a seemingly impossible task.

They immediately understood that this could only be done by force. It would take a condition of global distress—something approaching a world war—in order for the Zionists to manipulate things to their advantage. Their guiding principle of ‘profit through distress’ could work here, but it would require both internal and external pressure. In states where the Jews had significant population but little official power, they would foment unrest from within. In states where they had influence, they would use the power of their accumulated wealth to dictate national policy. And in states where they had neither population nor influence, they would apply external pressure to secure support for their purposes.

That the Zionists seriously contemplated this two-pronged, internal/external strategy is no mere speculation; we have the word of Herzl himself. He wrote:

When we sink, we become a revolutionary proletariat, the subordinate officers of the revolutionary party; when we rise, there rises also our terrible power of the purse. (1896/1967: 26)

In fact, Herzl apparently predicted the outbreak of global war. One of the original Zionists, Litman Rosenthal, wrote in his diary of 15 December 1914 his recollection of a conversation with Herzl from 1897. Herzl allegedly said,

It may be that Turkey will refuse or be unable to understand us. This will not discourage us. We will seek other means to accomplish our end. The Orient question is now the question of the day. Sooner or later it will bring about a conflict among the nations. A European war is imminent… The great European war must come. With my watch in hand do I await this terrible moment. After the great European war is ended the Peace Conference will assemble. We must be ready for that time. We will assuredly be called to this great conference of the nations and we must prove to them the urgent importance of a Zionist solution to the Jewish Question.

This was Herzl’s so-called “great war prophecy.” Now, he does not say that the Zionists will cause this war, only that they will “be ready” when it comes, and “will seek other means” than diplomacy to accomplish their end. A striking prediction, if true.[13]

In any case, there was clearly a larger plan at work here. The Jews would pursue a policy of revolution in states like Russia in order to bring down hated governments. To the degree possible, they would seek to undermine the Ottoman Turks as well. And in Germany, the UK, and America, they would use “the terrible power of the purse” to dictate an aggressive war-policy in order to realign the global power structure to their favor. This would have a triple benefit: curtailing rampant anti-Semitism; enhancing Jewish wealth; and ultimately establishing a Jewish state in Palestine, one that could serve as the global center of world Jewry. Revolution and war thus became a top priority.[14]

Turkey was in fact an early success for the movement. The Sultan’s system of autocratic rule generated some dissatisfaction, and a group of Turkish Jews exploited this to their advantage—resulting in the Turkish Revolution of 1908. As Stein explains,

the revolution had been organized from Salonica [present-day Thessaloniki], where the Jews, together with the crypto-Jews known as Dönmeh, formed a majority of the population. Salonica Jews and the Dönmeh had taken an important part in the events associated with the revolution and had provided the Committee of Union and Progress with several of its ablest members. (1961: 35)[15]

This group of revolutionaries, today known as the Young Turks, was able to overthrow the Sultan and exert substantial influence on the succeeding ruler. But in the end they were unable to steer the declining empire in a pro-Zionist direction.

Back in the USA, Jewish population was rising even faster than in Germany. In 1880 it had roughly 250,000 Jews (0.5%), but by 1900—just 20 years later—the figure was around 1.5 million (1.9%). A census of 1918 showed this number increasing to an astonishing figure of 3 million (2.9%). Their political influence grew commensurately.

For present purposes, significant American influence began with the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901. He was shot by a Polish radical named Leon Czolgosz, who had been heavily influenced by two Jewish anarchists, Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman. The presidency immediately fell to the vice president, Theodore Roosevelt—who, at age 42, was (and remains) the youngest president in history. His role as an army colonel in the 1898 victory in Cuba over the Spaniards had led to widespread publicity, and with the backing of the Jewish community, he won the New York governorship later that same year. Thus he was well situated to earn the vice presidential nomination in 1900.

A question of interest: Was Roosevelt Jewish? I will examine this issue in detail later with respect to FDR (as to whom there is more to say), but in brief, there is considerable circumstantial evidence that all of the Roosevelts were, at least in part, Jewish. In Theodore’s case, the only explicit indication is a claim by former Michigan governor Chase Osborn. In a letter dated 21 March 1935, Osborn said, “President [Franklin] Roosevelt knows well enough that his ancestors were Jewish. I heard Theodore Roosevelt state twice that his ancestors were Jewish.”[16] But Osborn offers no specifics, and I am not aware of any further claims regarding Theodore himself.

However, there are two other relevant items regarding his Jewish connections. Having acceded to the office in 1901, he subsequently won the 1904 election. In late 1906 he appointed the first Jew to the presidential cabinet: Oscar Straus, a wealthy New York lawyer and former ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. As Secretary of Labor and Commerce, Straus was in charge of the Bureau of Immigration—at the critical time of accelerating Jewish immigration. We can be sure that his office was particularly amenable to incoming Jews.

The second event occurred in 1912. Roosevelt had declined to run again in 1908, preferring to nominate his Secretary of War, William Taft—who proceeded to win handily. Taft, however, disappointed many Republicans, and there was a call to bring Roosevelt back. But the party would not oust a sitting president, and so Roosevelt decided to run on a third-party ticket. Hence the peculiar status of the 1912 election: it featured Taft running for reelection, Roosevelt running as a third-party candidate, and Woodrow Wilson running as a first-term Democrat. As the history books like to say, we had a former president and a sitting president running against a future president. Wilson, as we know, would win this race, and go on to serve two consecutive terms—covering the lead-up, duration, and aftermath of World War I.

Jewish banker Paul Warburg (1868-1932) at the 1st Pan-American Financial Conference, Washington D.C., May, 1915. By Harris & Ewing [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Jewish banker Paul Warburg (1868-1932) at the 1st Pan-American Financial Conference, Washington D.C., May, 1915. By Harris & Ewing [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
But less well known is this fact: For perhaps the first time in US history, all three major candidates had substantial Jewish financial backing. Henry Ford’s Dearborn Independentreported on a 1914 Congressional testimony by Paul Warburg, best known as the Jewish “father of the Federal Reserve.” Warburg was the prototypical Jewish banker, long-time partner at Kuhn, Loeb, and Co., and later head of Wells Fargo in New York. At some point during Taft’s presidency, Warburg decided to get financially involved in politics. By the time of the 1912 election, he and his partners at Kuhn, Loeb were funding all three candidates. Warburg’s testimony, before Senator Joseph Bristow (R-Kan.), is revealing:

JB: “It has been variously reported in the newspapers that you and your partners directly and indirectly contributed very largely to Mr. Wilson’s campaign funds.” PW: “Well, my partners—there is a very peculiar condition—no; I do not think any one of them contributed largely at all; there may have been moderate contributions. My brother, for instance, contributed to Mr. Taft’s campaign.” …

JB: “I understood you to say that you contributed to Mr. Wilson’s campaign.” PW: “No; my letter says that I offered to contribute; but it was too late. I came back to this country only a few days before the campaign closed.” JB: “So that you did not make any contribution?” PW: “I did not make any contribution; no.” JB: “Did any members of your firm make contributions to Mr. Wilson’s campaign?” PW: “I think that is a matter of record. Mr. [Jacob] Schiff contributed. I would not otherwise discuss the contributions of my partners, if it was not a matter of record. I think Mr. Schiff was the only one who contributed in our firm.” JB: “And you stated that your brother had contributed to Mr. Taft’s campaign, as I understand it?” PW: “I did. But again, I do not want to go into a discussion of my partners’ affairs, and I shall stick to that pretty strictly, or we will never get through.” JB: “I understood you also to say that no members of your firm contributed to Mr. Roosevelt’s campaign.” PW: “I did not say that.” JB: “Oh! Did any members of the firm do that?” PW: “My answer would please you probably; but I shall not answer that, but will repeat that I will not discuss my partners’ affairs.” JB: “Yes. I understood you to say Saturday that you were a Republican, but when Mr. Roosevelt became a candidate, you then became a sympathizer with Mr. Wilson and supported him?” PW: “Yes.” JB: “While your brother was supporting Mr. Taft?” PW: “Yes.” JB: “And I was interested to know whether any member of your firm supported Mr. Roosevelt.” PW: “It is a matter of record that there are.” JB: “That there are some of them who did?” PW: “Oh, yes.”[17]

In sum: some unknown members of Kuhn, Loeb donated to Roosevelt; Paul’s brother (Felix) gave to Taft; and Schiff donated to Wilson. Cleverly, Paul Warburg himself admitted to no funding, but we can hardly take him at his word here. In any case, there was a Jewish hand in all three contestants, and the Jews were guaranteed influence with the winner, no matter the outcome. We don’t know the extent of this influence, nor how long it had gone on. To date I have not uncovered evidence of Jewish involvement with Roosevelt’s 1904 election, although his appointment of Straus to the cabinet is typical of the kind of political patronage that follows financial support. And the same with Taft: We don’t know the degree of Jewish support for his initial run in 1908, but support in 1912 suggests that they were reasonably satisfied with his performance.

But Taft turned out to be a mixed bag for the Jews. On the one hand, Jewish immigration continued apace. And he did appoint Oscar Straus to the ambassadorship to the Ottoman Empire . However, he was less inclined to act on the international stage than the Jews had wished. Of particular concern was the growing problem in Russia, and steady reports of Jewish pogroms. For example, there was the “Kishinev massacre” of April 1903; the New York Times reported that “Jews were slaughtered like sheep. The dead number 120… The scenes of horror attending this massacre are beyond description. Babes were literally torn to pieces by the frenzied and blood-thirsty mob” (April 28; p. 6). A slight exaggeration—the actual death toll was 47. A second attack in Kishinev in 1905 left 19 dead; regrettable, but hardly a catastrophe. In early 1910 the NYT ran an article, “Russian Jews in Sad Plight.” Their source said, “The condition of Russian [Jews] is worse today than at any time since the barbarous massacres and pogroms of 1905 and 1906.”[18] Then on 18 September 1911, the Russian Prime Minister, Pyotr Stolypin, was shot and killed—by a Jewish assassin, Mordekhai Gershkovich, aka Dmitri Bogrov. (The reader will recall Herzl’s demand for revolutionary action.) This of course brought even harsher recriminations.

But the last straw, for the American Zionists, was the restriction on American Jews from entering into Russia. There had been obstacles in place since the turn of the century, but they became much more stringent during Taft’s presidency. The Zionists wanted the US government to take action, but this was forestalled by a long-standing treaty of 1832, one that guaranteed “reciprocal liberty of commerce and navigation” and allowed mutual freedom of entry of citizens on both sides. The Zionists thus took it upon themselves to initiate the abrogation of this treaty as a means of putting external pressure on the Czarist regime. And, despite the wishes of President Taft and the best interests of America at large, they succeeded. This whole incident, thoroughly documented by Cohen (1963), is an astounding and watershed event in Jewish influence. As she says,

Credit for this act belongs to a small group which had campaigned publicly during 1911 for the abrogation of the treaty. How a mere handful of men succeeded in arousing American public opinion on a relatively obscure issue to a near “wave of hysteria,” how they forced the hand of an antagonistic administration, and what principal aim lay behind their fight for abrogation constitute an absorbing story of pressure politics. (p. 3)

The “mere handful of men” consisted primarily of Jewish lawyer Louis Marshall, the banker Jacob Schiff, and their colleagues at the American Jewish Committee—the ‘AIPAC’ of its day, and still a potent force a century later. They had raised the topic of abrogation as early as 1908, but it did not become a top priority until early 1910. They then approached Taft, knowing that he was preparing to run for reelection the following year. As Cohen (p. 9) says, “The quid pro quo was obvious; the Jewish leaders would try to deliver the Jewish vote to Taft.” But he was unsympathetic. Taft knew that, for several reasons, it was not in America’s favor: Our commercial interests, our Far East foreign policy, Russian good will, and our international integrity would all be harmed by abrogation. But the Jews were pressing; in February 1910 they met with Taft, to “give him one last chance” to support their cause. When he again declined, they decided to go around the president, to Congress and to the American people. They knew how to work Congress. As Cohen (p. 13) explains, “the pattern of Jewish petitions to the government…was generally that of secret diplomacy. Wealthy or politically prominent individuals asked favors…but always in the form of discreet pressure and behind-the-scenes bargaining.” But mounting a public campaign was something new.

In January 1911, Marshall “officially opened the public campaign for abrogation.” He immediately appealed not to Jewish interest—though that was the sole motive—but rather to allegedly American interests. “It is not the Jew who is insulted; it is the American people,” he said. As Shogan (2010: 22) puts it, “a key to the [Jewish] strategy was to frame its demand as a plea to protect American interests in general, not just the rights of Jews.” The AJC then embarked on a massive propaganda effort. They enlisted Jewish support in the media; Samuel Strauss and Adolph Ochs (of the New York Times) helped coordinate a series of articles and op-eds in several major cities. They made the case “in popular emotional terms,” organized petitions and letter-writing programs, and held dedicated, pro-abrogation rallies—one of which included such luminaries as William Hearst and future president Woodrow Wilson.[19] Everything was designed to put maximum pressure on Congress to act.

All the while, Taft remained firm in his opposition. In a private letter he wrote, “I am the President of the whole United States, and the vote of the Jews, important as it is, cannot frighten me in this matter” (Cohen, p. 21). Secretary of State Philander Knox, and Ambassador to Russia William Rockhill, both strongly supported him. Rockhill was particularly galled; expressing his thoughts, Cohen asks, “were national interests to be subservient to a small group of individuals?” After all, the actual harm was near microscopic: “Only 28 American Jews resided in Russia, and the State Dept knew of only four cases in five years where American Jews were denied admission” (p. 16). And yet this “small group of men” was turning the tide in their favor.

By November of 1911, just 11 months after launching their public campaign, the AJC was confident of victory. Schiff was able to predict easy passage for the resolution. That same month an “unofficial delegation” of Jews met with Taft regarding his pending annual message, and they convinced him that Congressional action was inevitable, and veto-proof. Taft relented, agreeing to sign the resolution when it reached his desk. Wanting no further delay, the AJC pressed for a vote before the end of year. On December 13 the House approved the measure—by the astounding tally of 301 to 1. A slightly modified version came up for Senate vote on December 19, which was passed unanimously. A reconciled bill was approved the next day, and Taft signed it. So it came to be that, on 20 December 1911, the US government sold its soul to the Jewish Lobby.

The importance of this event can scarcely be overestimated. The interests of “a mere handful of men,” acting on behalf of a small American minority, were able to dictate governmental foreign policy, against the express wishes of the president and his staff, and contrary to the larger interests of the nation.

The Russians, incidentally, were stunned at this decision. They knew of the Jewish hand behind it, but could hardly believe that it had the power to carry through on its threat. The NYT again gives a useful report:

In parliamentary circles here [in Russia] the prevailing comment is characterized by astonishment that the American government has responded so readily to the Jewish outcry. The opinion is expressed by members of the Duma that in all probability the Jews will now attempt to force matters further. (20 Dec 1911; p. 2)

Indeed—the Jewish-led Bolshevik revolution was just six years away.

Such was the state of things in America and globally at that time. International Jewry had sufficient wealth and influence to steer events at the highest levels, and American Jews (Zionist and otherwise) had come to permeate the government—and American culture generally. The situation so impressed German economist Werner Sombart that in 1911 he made this observation: “For what we call Americanism is nothing else than the Jewish spirit distilled.”[20]From the perspective of a century later, this would seem truer than ever.

Wilson and the “Great War”

All this, then, serves as the context and backdrop for the emergence of Woodrow Wilson, beginning with the election of 1912. If Franklin Roosevelt was “the first great hero of American Jews,”[21] then Wilson was the first great understudy. As Henry Ford saw it, “Mr. Wilson, while President, was very close to the Jews. His administration, as everyone knows, was predominantly Jewish.”[22] Wilson seems to have been the first president to have the full backing of the Jewish Lobby, including multiple major financial donors. And he was the first to fully reward their support.

It’s worthwhile summarizing the main figures in the Jewish power structure, as of 1912. Herzl died young in 1904, so he was out of the picture. But a “mere handful” of others came to dominate the movement, and the American scene:

Oscar Straus (age 62), German-born, first Jewish cabinet member under T. Roosevelt, and later ambassador to the Ottoman Empire under Taft.
Jacob Schiff (65), head of the Kuhn, Loeb banking firm.
Louis Marshall (56), borderline Zionist, founder of the AJC.
The Warburg brothers: Paul (44) and Felix (41), German-born bankers. A third brother, Max, stayed in Germany (until 1938).
Henry Morgenthau, Sr. (56), German-born lawyer, father of the even more influential Henry, Jr.
Louis Brandeis (56), lawyer, strongly Zionist.
Samuel Untermyer (54), lawyer.
Bernard Baruch (42), Wall Street financier.
Stephen Wise (40), Austrian-born rabbi and fervent Zionist.
Richard Gottheil (50), British-born rabbi and Zionist.
These, to emphasize, were all Americans. On the European side there was a different structure, one centered on such figures as Chaim Weizmann and Herbert Samuel in Britain, and Max Nordau in France.

Let me begin with financial backing—which of course has long been the trump card of Jewry. Many of the above individuals were prime supporters of Wilson. Cooper (2009: 172) remarks that his “big contributors” included the likes of “Henry Morgenthau, Jacob Schiff, and Samuel Untermyer, as well as a newcomer to their ranks, Bernard Baruch.” Such assistance continued throughout Wilson’s tenure; for his 1916 reelection bid, “financiers such as Henry Morgenthau and Bernard Baruch gave generously” (ibid: 350). As we saw, Schiff’s support was admitted by Warburg in his congressional testimony.

Warburg himself was very evasive, allowing only that his “sympathies went with Mr. Wilson.” Yet we can hardly believe that no money followed. Warburg’s most profound impact was his leading role in the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913, the year Wilson took office. Seligman (1914: 387) remarks that “it may be stated without fear of contradiction that in its fundamental features the Federal Reserve is the work of Mr. Warburg more than of any other man in the country.” Its basic principles, he said, “were the creation of Mr. Warburg and of Mr. Warburg alone.” In due recognition, Wilson appointed him to the Fed’s first Board of Governors in August 1914.

Morgenthau’s influence began in 1911, when Wilson was still governor of New Jersey. Balakian (2003: 220) notes that it was at this time that the two “bonded,” and that “Morgenthau offered Wilson his ‘unreserved moral and financial support’.” In the run-up to the 1912 Democratic convention, “Morgenthau was giving $5,000 a month to the campaign, and continued to give generously throughout the fall” (ibid.: 221). In fact, says Balakian, only a few of his wealthy Princeton classmates gave more. Ward (1989: 252) confirms this, noting that Morgenthau “had been an important backer of Woodrow Wilson in 1912.” Morgenthau duly received his reward: ambassadorship to Ottoman Turkey, again overseeing Palestine.

Of special importance was Wilson’s association with Louis Brandeis. The two first met back in 1910; Shogan (2010: 64) describes Brandeis’s “friendship with Woodrow Wilson,” noting that he had “worked mightily” for him in the 1912 campaign. In a telling statement, Wilson wrote to his friend after the election, “You were yourself a great part of the victory.”[23] Brandeis would be rewarded by a successful nomination to the Supreme Court in June 1916—the first Jew on the court. He would serve a full 23 years, well beyond Wilson’s lifetime, and, despite his formal ‘neutrality’ as a justice, would play a vital role in both world wars.

But perhaps the most significant of all was Bernard Baruch. A millionaire before he was 30, Baruch catapulted out of nowhere, under obscure conditions, to become a leading influence in the Wilson administration. Already in 1915, in the early years of the European war, he was convinced that America would be involved. In Congressional testimony of February 1920, Baruch stated that, in 1915, he “had been very much disturbed by the unprepared condition of this country.” “I had been thinking about it very seriously, and I thought we would be drawn into the war. … I thought a war was coming long before it did.” Through some still-mysterious process, Baruch was named to the Council of National Defense in early 1916. He then came to control a particular subcommittee, the War Industries Board (WIB), which had extraordinary wartime powers. Baruch single-handedly ran it throughout the war years. His testimony before Sen. Albert Jefferis (R-Neb.) summarizes his role:

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AJ: “In what lines did this board of 10 have the powers that you mention? BB: “We had the power of priority, which was the greatest power in the war.” AJ: “In other words, you determined what everybody could have?” BB: “Exactly; there is no question about that. I assumed that responsibility, sir, and that final determination rested within me.” AJ: “What?” BB: “That final determination, as the President said, rested within me; the determination of whether the Army or Navy should have it rested with me; the determination of whether the Railroad Administration could have it, or the Allies, or whether General Allenby should have locomotives, or whether they should be used in Russia, or used in France.” AJ: “You had considerable power?” BB: “Indeed I did, sir.” …

AJ: “And all those different lines, really, ultimately, centered in you, so far as power was concerned?” BB: “Yes, sir, it did. I probably had more power than perhaps any other man did in the war; doubtless that is true.”[24]

An astonishing fact: a young, unelected Jew with no political experience becomes, in time of crisis, the most powerful man in the US government, after the president himself. And yet all this was just a rehearsal. Baruch would play a similar role in the Second World War under FDR, in his Office of War Mobilization. He was also a friend and confidant of Winston Churchill. No doubt “Barney” Baruch had lots of advice for all parties involved.

World War I began in earnest in August of 1914, when the German army crossed into officially neutral Belgium on its way to France. A series of alliances and treaties triggered a chain reaction in which 10 nations entered the war by the end of that year. Ultimately another 18 would be engaged—though in the case of the US, it would be nearly two and half years later. It’s difficult today, with our present eagerness to engage in warfare around the world, to understand the degree to which Americans then were so strongly anti-interventionist. Neither the public nor the government had any real inclination to get involved in a European war. Publicly, at least, Wilson himself was a pacifist and an isolationist. In a speech of 19 August 1914, just after the outbreak of war, he proclaimed that “every man who really loves America will act and speak in the true spirit of neutrality, which is the spirit of impartiality and fairness and friendliness to all concerned.” We have a duty to be “the one great nation at peace,” and thus “we must be impartial in thought as well as in action.”[25]

And yet, American governmental policy did not fully adhere to these lofty words. Under international law, the United States, as a neutral party, had the right to conduct commerce with all sides. But of course both Britain and Germany sought to restrict trade with the other. A British naval blockade interrupted or seized a substantial portion of our intended shipments to Germany, reducing trade by more than 90%. And yet Wilson hardly objected. On the other hand, when German submarines attacked or threatened our shipments to England, he reacted in the strongest manner. The end result was a near quadrupling of trade with the Allies between 1914 and 1916. In practical terms, we were supporting the Allied war effort, even as we remained officially neutral. Wilson’s government—if not he himself—was decidedly biased against the Germans. Not coincidentally, Wilson’s Jewish advisors were, to a man, anti-German.

By the time of the 1916 election, war was churning throughout Europe. Still, Wilson promised to remain unengaged; he ran and won on the slogan, “He kept us out of war.” The American people too had little appetite for armed conflict; as Cooper (2009: 381) writes, “Clearly, the president was not feeling a push for war from Congress or the public.” But like so many campaign promises, this one would be discarded soon afterward—in fact, barely one month after his second inauguration.

So: Why did he do it? Why did Wilson change his mind and, on 2 April 1917, issue his famous call to Congress to declare war on Germany? His official answer: German submarines were relentlessly targeting US military, passenger, and cargo ships, and thus we simply had no choice. But this explanation does not withstand scrutiny. Early in the war the Germans were sinking a number of ships that were trafficking with the Allies, but in September 1915, after urgent demands from Wilson, they suspended submarine attacks. This suspension held for an exceptionally long time—through February 1917. And all throughout that time, we, and other “neutral” nations, were trading with Germany’s enemies, supplying them with material goods, and assisting in a naval blockade. Thus it is unsurprising that the Germans eventually resumed their attacks, on all ships in the war zone.

In his famous speech to Congress, Wilson said of the lifting of the suspension, “the Imperial German Government…put aside all restraints of law or of humanity, and uses its submarines to sink every vessel [in the war zone].” Sparing no hyperbole, he added, “The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind. It is a war against all nations.”

But what are the facts? Specifically, how big a threat did Germany pose to the US? In reality, it was not much of a threat at all. From the time of the outbreak of war (August 1914) until Wilson’s declaration in April 1917, a total of three small military ships were lost—one submarine in 1915, one armored cruiser in 1916, and one protected cruiser in early 1917. Additionally, a total of 12 American merchant steamers (freight ships) were sunk in the same period, but with the loss of only 38 individual lives.[26] So the US had lost a grand total of 15 ships to that point. Putting this in perspective: Over the course of the entire war, German U-boats sank roughly 6,600 ships in total. Hence the threat to the US was all but inconsequential. Clearly Wilson was thinking in internationalist terms, and someone or something convinced him that realigning the global order was more important than American public opinion; thus his famous and much-derided phrase: “The world must be made safe for democracy.” Yes—but whose democracy?

A few powerful voices opposed Wilson, including Senators Robert La Follette (R-Wisc.) and George Norris (R-Neb.). Both spoke on April 4, just two days after Wilson’s plea for war. La Follette was outraged at the unilateral action taken by the Wilson administration. In a scathing speech, he said:

I am speaking of a profession of democracy that is linked in action with the most brutal and domineering use of autocratic power. Are the people of this country being so well-represented in this war movement that we need to go abroad to give other people control of their governments? Will the President and the supporters of this war bill submit it to a vote of the people before the declaration of war goes into effect? … Who has registered the knowledge or approval of the American people of the course this Congress is called upon to take in declaring war upon Germany? Submit the question to the people, you who support it. You who support it dare not do it, for you know that by a vote of more than ten to one the American people as a body would register their declaration against it.[27]

Norris had some ideas about the driving forces behind the call to war. He believed that many Americans had been “misled as to the real history and the true facts, by the almost unanimous demand of the great combination of wealth that has a direct financial interest in our participation in the war.”[28] Wall Street bankers loaned millions to the Allies, and naturally wanted it repaid. And then there were the profits to be made from military hardware and ammunition. These same forces also held sway in the media:

 [A] large number of the great newspapers and news agencies of the country have been controlled and enlisted in the greatest propaganda that the world has ever known, to manufacture sentiment in favor of war. … [And now] Congress, urged by the President and backed by the artificial sentiment, is about to declare war and engulf our country in the greatest holocaust that the world has ever known…

Indeed—every war is a ‘holocaust.’ Norris then encapsulated his view with a most striking line: “We are going into war upon the command of gold.” And everyone knew who held the gold.

Norris and La Follette both realized they had no chance to change the outcome. Any force that could compel abrogation of the Russian treaty and monopolize a presidential election could manufacture Congressional consent for war. Later that same day, the Senate confirmed it, by a vote of 82 to 6. Two days thereafter, the House concurred, 373 to 50. And so we were at war. American troops would be on the ground in Europe within three months.

Balfour

Political power is a strange thing; it is one of those rare cases where appearance is reality. If you say you have power, and others say you have power, and if all parties act as if you have power—then you have power. Such is the case with the Jewish Lobby. Simply because, at that time, they had no army, had internal disagreements, and in no country exceeded one or two percent of the population, we cannot conclude that they were mere helpless pawns, manipulated at will by the great powers. And yet today, modern commentators continue to refer to the ‘illusory’ or ‘misperceived’ power of the Jews at that time.[29] This can now be exposed as a weak attempt to whitewash the Jewish power play. When a small minority can dictate foreign policy, promote global war, and steer the outcome in their favor, then they have substantial power—no matter what anyone says. It was true in 1911; it was true in the 1912 election; and it would be clearly demonstrated once again in the case of the Balfour Declaration of 1917.

To recap: During Wilson’s first term, Jewish Americans achieved major political gains. Paul Warburg’s Federal Reserve Act was passed, and he was named to the Board. Henry Morgenthau, Sr. was nominated ambassador to Turkey, watching over Palestine. Brandeis was named to the Supreme Court. And Baruch became the second most powerful man in the land.

Jews also made important strides elsewhere in America during those four years. Two more Jewish governors were elected—Alexander in Idaho, and Bamburger in Utah. The motion-picture business witnessed the beginning of Jewish domination, with Universal Pictures (Carl Laemmle), Paramount (Zukor, Lasky, Frohmans, and Goldwyn), Fox Films (William Fox), and the early formation of “Warner” Bros. Pictures—in reality, the four Wonskolaser brothers: Hirsz, Aaron, Szmul, and Itzhak.[30] This development would prove useful for wartime propaganda. And the Jewish population grew by some 500,000 people.

1917 was the first year of Wilson’s second term. The European war was into its third year, and looking increasingly like a stalemate. With the German resumption of U-boat attacks on shipping to the UK and the American declaration, a true world war was in hand. And it was also a time of revolution in Russia. In fact, two revolutions: the worker’s uprising in February that overthrew Czar Nicholas II, and the Bolshevik revolution in October that put the Jewish revolutionaries in power.

Leon Trotsky (1879-1940) born Lev Davidovich Bronstein was a Marxist revolutionary and the founder and first leader of the Red Army. By Isaac McBride (Barbarous Soviet Russia) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Leon Trotsky (1879-1940) born Lev Davidovich Bronstein was a Marxist revolutionary and the founder and first leader of the Red Army. By Isaac McBride (Barbarous Soviet Russia) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
The role of Jews in the Russian revolution(s) is a complicated and interesting story. There isn’t space here to elaborate, but in brief, the communist movement had a heavy Jewish hand from its inception. Marx, of course, was a German Jew, and his writings inspired an 18-year-old Vladimir Lenin in 1888. Lenin was himself one-quarter Jewish (maternal grandfather: Alexandr Blank). In 1898, Lenin formed a revolutionary group, the Russian Social Democratic Worker’s Party (RSDWP), which was the early precursor to the Soviet Communist Party. Four years later, Lenin was joined by a full-blooded Jew, Leon Trotsky—born Lev Bronstein. Internal dissension led to a schism in 1903, at which time the RSDWP split into Bolshevik (‘majority’) and Menshevik (‘minority’) factions. Both factions were disproportionately Jewish. In addition to Lenin and Trotsky, leading Bolshevik Jews included Grigory Zinoviev, Yakov Sverdlov, Lev Kamenev (aka Rozenfeld), Karl Radek, Leonid Krassin, Alexander Litvinov, and Lazar Kaganovich. Ben-Sasson (1976: 943) observes that these men, and “others of Jewish origin…were prominent among the leaders of the Russian Bolshevik revolution.” This was public knowledge, even at the time. As the London Times reported in 1919,

One of the most curious features of the Bolshevist movement is the high percentage of non-Russian elements amongst its leaders. Of the 20 or 30 leaders who provide the central machinery of the Bolshevist movement, not less than 75 percent are Jews. … [T]he Jews provide the executive officers. (March 29, p. 10)

The article proceeds to list Trotsky and some 17 other individuals by name. Levin (1988: 13) notes that, at the 1907 RSDWP Congress, there were nearly 100 Jewish delegates, comprising about one third of the total. About 20% of the Mensheviks were Jews, but by 1917 they comprised eight of 17 (47%) of its Central Committee members.[31]

Thus it was that, in the years leading up to the 1917 revolutions, Jews were working internally and externally to overthrow the Czar. Stein (1961: 98) quotes a Zionist memo of 1914, promoting “relations with the Jews in Eastern Europe and in America, so as to contribute to the overthrow of Czarist Russia and to secure the national autonomy of the Jews.” Temperley (1924: 173) noted that, “by 1917, [Russian Jews] had done much in preparation for that general disintegration of Russian national life, later recognized as the revolution.” Ziff (1938: 56) stated the common view of the time that “Jewish influence in Russia was supposed to be considerable. Jews were playing a prominent part in the revolution…”

Surprisingly, even Winston Churchill acknowledged this fact. In 1920 he wrote an infamous essay explaining the difference between the “good” (Zionist) Jews and the “bad” Bolsheviks. This dichotomy, which was nothing less than a “struggle for the soul of the Jewish people,” made it appear almost “as if the gospel of Christ and the gospel of Antichrist were destined to originate among the same people” (1920/2002: 24). The Zionists were “national” Jews who sought only a homeland for their beleaguered people. The evil “international Jews,” the Bolsheviks, sought revolution, chaos, and even world domination. It was, said Churchill, a “sinister conspiracy.” He continued:

This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxemburg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States), this world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. … It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the Nineteenth Century; and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire. (p. 25)

“There is no need to exaggerate” the Jewish role in the Russian revolution; “It is certainly a very great one. … [T]he majority of the leading figures are Jews.” In the Soviet institutions, “the predominance of Jews is even more astonishing.” But perhaps the worst aspect was the dominant role of Judeo-terrorism. Churchill was clear and explicit:

 [T]he prominent, if not indeed the principal, part in the system of terrorism applied by the Extraordinary Commissions for Combating Counter-Revolution has been taken by Jews, and in some notable cases by Jewesses. The same evil prominence was obtained by Jews in the brief period of terror during which Bela Kun ruled in Hungary. The same phenomenon has been presented in Germany (especially in Bavaria), so far as this madness has been allowed to prey upon the temporary prostration of the German people. … [T]he part played by the [Jews] in proportion to their numbers in the population is astonishing. (p. 26)

By this time, Churchill had been working on behalf of Zionist Jews for some 15 years. He had long counted on Jewish political support, and was rumored to be in the pay of wealthy Zionists.[32]

The Russian revolutions were significant, but the premier event of 1917 was surely the Balfour Declaration of November 2. This short letter from the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Baron Rothschild was remarkable: it promised to a “mere handful” of British subjects (and indirectly their coreligionists worldwide) a land that the United Kingdom did not possess, and that was part of some other empire. It is enlightening to examine the orthodox account of this event. According to the standard view, it was at this time that Britain was not only mired in the war on the Continent, but also that “British forces were fighting to win Palestine from the Ottoman Empire.”[33] The Brits wanted it “because of its location near the Suez Canal.” (In fact, of course, Palestine is more than 200 km from the Canal, separated by the whole of the Sinai Peninsula.) “The British believed the Balfour Declaration would help gain support of this goal from Jewish leaders in the UK, the United States, and other countries.”

So, here are a few relevant questions: Was control of the Canal really the primary objective? Or did the British think that the Jews would help them in their broader war aims? The Jews?—a beleaguered minority everywhere, with no nation, no army, no “real power”? Could they really help the British Empire? And did they in fact help them? And if so, how?

Nothing in the documentation of the time suggests that the canal was anything more than an incidental concern. But there was clearly a larger goal—to enlist the aid of Jews everywhere, in order to help Britain win the war. Schneer (2010: 152) notes that, beginning in early 1916, the British sought to “explore seriously some kind of arrangement with ‘world Jewry’ or ‘Great Jewry’.” A diplomatic communiqué of March 13 is explicit:

 [T]he most influential part of Jewry in all the countries would very much appreciate an offer of agreement concerning Palestine… [I]t is clear that by utilizing the Zionist idea, important political results can be achieved. Among them will be the conversion, in favour of the Allies, of Jewish elements in the Orient, in the United States, and in other places… The only purpose of [His Majesty’s] Government is to find some arrangement…which might facilitate the conclusion of an agreement ensuring the Jewish support. (in Ziff 1938: 56)

Later that year, an advisor to the British government, James Malcolm, pressed this very point: that, by promising Palestine to the Zionists, they would use their influence around the world—and especially in America—to help bring about overall victory. On the face of it, this was a preposterous suggestion: that the downtrodden Jewish minority, and in particular the even smaller minority of Zionist Jews, could do anything to alter events in a world war.

And yet that quickly became the official view of the British government—particularly so when David Lloyd George became prime minister in December 1916. Lloyd George was, from the Zionist perspective, a nearly ideal leader. He had been working with them since 1903.[34] He strongly believed in their near-mythic influence. And he was a devout Christian Zionist, making him an ideological compatriot. Immediately upon assuming office, Lloyd George directed his staff—in particular, Mark Sykes and Lord Arthur Balfour—to negotiate Jewish support. MacMillan explains:

From [early] 1917, with Lloyd George’s encouragement, Sykes met privately with Weizmann and other Zionists. The final, and perhaps most important, factor in swinging British support behind the Zionists was to make propaganda among Jews, particularly in the United States, which had not yet come into the war, and in Russia… (2003: 416; my italics)

And as if the stalled war wasn’t motivation enough, rumors were soon flying that the Zionists were also soliciting German support; the Jews, it seems, were willing to sell their services to the highest bidder.[35] When these rumors reached London, “the British government moved with speed” (ibid). And with speed they did. With Brandeis’s input, a first draft of the brief statement was completed in July. A second draft appeared in mid-October, and by the end of that month Balfour was ready to make public his Government’s stance: “from a purely diplomatic and political point of view, it was desirable that some declaration favourable to the aspirations of the Jewish nationalists should now be made. … If we could make a declaration favourable to such an ideal, we should be able to carry on extremely useful propaganda both in Russia and America.”[36] Three days later, they did.

But most striking was the implication that the “mere handful” of Zionist Jews in England could actually be a decisive factor in bringing a reluctant US into the global war. If successful, this would dramatically swing the military balance of power. And via Wilson’s Jewish advisors—most notably Baruch and Brandeis—they had the ear of the president. But could they do it?

Unquestionably, the Brits thought they could—and that they did. This is such an astonishing manifestation of Jewish power that it is worth reviewing the opinions of several commentators. Speaking after the war, on 4 July 1922, Churchill argued for full implementation of the famous Declaration:

Pledges and promises were made during the War… They were made because it was considered they would be of value to us in our struggle to win the War. It was considered that the support which the Jews could give us all over the world, and particularly in the United States, and also in Russia, would be a definite palpable advantage. (in Gilbert 2007: 78-79)

In his monumental six-volume study of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, British historian Howard Temperley (1924) made this observation:

It was believed that if Great Britain declared for the fulfillment of Zionist aspirations in Palestine under her own pledge, one effect would be to bring Russian Jewry to the cause of the Entente [Allies]. It was believed, also, that such a declaration would have a potent influence upon world Jewry in the same way, and secure for the Entente the aid of Jewish financial interests. It was believed, further, that it would greatly influence American opinion in favour of the Allies. Such were the chief considerations which, during the later part of 1916 and the next ten months of 1917, impelled the British Government towards making a contract with Jewry. (1924, vol. 6: 173)

We must bear in mind that the Declaration was issued seven months after US entry into the war. But Temperley is unequivocal: the deal was concluded “during the later part of 1916,” well before Wilson’s decision to go to war. Apparently the deal was this: bring the US into the war, and we will promise you your Jewish homeland. Such was the “contract with Jewry.”

Sensing the importance, Temperley reiterates the point, to drive it home: “That it is in purpose a definite contract with Jewry is beyond question. … In spirit it is a pledge that, in return for services to be rendered by Jewry, the British Government would ‘use their best endeavours’ to secure… Palestine.” And in fact, it was a good deal all around. “The Declaration certainly rallied world Jewry, as a whole, to the side of the Entente… [T]he services of Jewry were not expected in vain, and were…well worth the price which had to be paid” (p. 174). Britain’s price was low: a spit of land far from the home country. True, there would be Arab resistance, but the Brits were used to that. A much higher price would be paid by Germany and the Central Powers, and by America—who would expend hundreds of millions of dollars, and suffer 116,000 war dead.

A Zionist insider, Samuel Landman, wrote a detailed and explicit account of these events in 1936. After noting some preliminary attempts in 1916, he remarks on the significance of Malcolm’s involvement. Malcolm knew that Wilson “always attached the greatest possible importance to the advice of a very prominent Zionist, Mr. Justice Brandeis…” (p. 4). Malcolm was able to convince Sykes and French ambassador Georges Picot that

the best and perhaps the only way…to induce the American President to come into the war was to secure the cooperation of Zionist Jews by promising them Palestine, and thus enlist and mobilize the hitherto unsuspectedly powerful forces of the Zionist Jews in America and elsewhere in favour of the Allies on a quid pro quo basis.

Granted, Landman was not an unbiased observer, and had good reason to exaggerate Zionist influence. But that was not the case with the British Royal Palestine Commission, which issued a report in 1937. At the critical stage of the war, “it was believed that Jewish sympathy or the reverse would make a substantial difference one way or the other to the Allied cause. In particular, Jewish sympathy would confirm the support of American Jewry…” (p. 23). The report then quotes Lloyd George:

The Zionist leaders gave us a definite promise that, if the Allies committed themselves to…a national home for the Jews in Palestine, they would do their best to rally Jewish sentiment and support throughout the world to the Allied cause. They kept their word.

Two years after this report, in 1939, the British contemplated starting a war with Germany. Churchill wrote a memo for his War Cabinet, reminding them that

it was not for light or sentimental reasons that Lord Balfour and the Government of 1917 made the promises to the Zionists which have been the cause of so much subsequent discussion. The influence of American Jewry was rated then as a factor of the highest importance, and we did not feel ourselves in such a strong position as to be able to treat it with indifference. (in Gilbert 2007: 165)

The implication, of course, was that the British might once again need Jewish help to defeat the Germans. Having been goaded into war in 1939 by Roosevelt and his Jewish advisors,[37] the British were becoming desperate once again to draw in the Americans. As David Irving reports, it was in late 1941 that Weizmann and his fellow British Zionists began “promising to use their influence in Washington to bring the United States into the war” (2001: 73). Irving quotes from an amazingly blunt letter from Weizmann to Churchill, promising to do again in this war what they did in the last:

There is only one big ethnic group [in America] which is willing to stand, to a man, for Great Britain, and a policy of ‘all-out aid’ for her: the five million Jews. From [Treasury] Secretary Morgenthau [Henry, Jr.], Governor [Herbert] Lehman, Justice Frankfurter, down to the simplest Jewish workman or trader… It has been repeatedly acknowledged by British Statesmen that it was the Jews who, in the last war, effectively helped to tip the scales in America in favour of Great Britain. They are keen to do it—and may do it—again. (p. 77)

So here we have Weizmann explicitly naming the influential Jews with the power to bring Roosevelt and the United States into a war in which it, once again, had no compelling interest. The letter was dated September 10, 1941. Churchill did not have to wait long. Within 90 days, America would be at war.

Sources

Balakian, P. 2003. The Burning Tigris. Harper Collins.
Ben-Sasson, H. 1976. A History of the Jewish People. Harvard University Press.
Chalberg, J. (ed.) 1995. Isolationism. Greenhaven Press.
Churchill, W. 1920/2002. “Zionism versus Bolshevism.” In L. Brenner (ed.), 51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis. Barricade Books.
Cohen, N. 1963. “The abrogation of the Russo-American treaty of 1832.” Jewish Social Studies, 25(1).
Cooper, J. 1983. The Warrior and the Priest. Belknap.
Cooper, J. 2009. Woodrow Wilson. Knopf.
Dalton, T. 2011a. “Eternal strangers: Anti-Jewish musings throughout history” (part 1). The Occidental Quarterly, 11(2) http://toqonline.com/archives/v11n2/TOQv11n2Dalton.pdf.
Dalton, T. 2011b. “Eternal strangers: Anti-Jewish musings throughout history” (part 2). The Occidental Quarterly, 11(3).
Dalton, T. 2011c. “Eternal strangers: Anti-Jewish musings throughout history” (part 3). The Occidental Quarterly, 11(4).
Dalton, T. 2012. “Anglo-American perspectives on anti-Semitism.” The Occidental Quarterly, 12(3).
d’Holbach, P. 1770/1813. Ecce Homo! or a Critical Inquiry in the History of Jesus Christ. D. I. Eaton.
Gilbert, M. 2007. Churchill and the Jews. Holt.
Gordon, S. 1984. Hitler, Jews, and the “Jewish Question”. Princeton University Press.
Hegel, G. 1975. Early Theological Writings. (T. Knox, trans.). University of Pennsylvania Press.
Hertzberg, A. 1968. The French Enlightenment and the Jews. Columbia University Press.
Herzl, T. 1896/1967. The Jewish State. Pordes.
Hodgson, G. 2006. Woodrow Wilson’s Right Hand. Yale University Press.
Ingrams, D. (ed.) 1972. Palestine Papers: 1917-1922. G. Braziller.
Irving, D. 2001. Churchill’s War (vol. 2). Focal Point.
Kant, I. 1798/1979. Conflict of the Faculties. (M. Gregor, trans.). Abaris.
Landman, S. 1936. Great Britain, the Jews, and Palestine. New Zionist Press.
Levin, N. 1988. The Jews in the Soviet Union since 1917. NYU Press.
Levy, R. 1991. Anti-Semitism in the Modern World. D. C. Heath.
Liebreich, F. 2005. Britain’s Naval and Political Reaction to the Illegal Immigration of Jews to Palestine, 1945-1948. Routledge.
Lloyd George, D. 1939. Memoirs of the Peace Conference (vol. 2). Yale University Press.
MacMillan, M. 2003. Paris 1919. Random House.
Makovsky, M. 2007. Churchill’s Promised Land. Yale University Press.
Mommsen, T. 1854/1957. History of Rome (vol. 4). Free Press.
Rather, L. 1990. Reading Wagner. Louisiana State University Press.
Schneer, J. 2010. The Balfour Declaration. Random House.
Seligman, E. 1914. “Introduction.” Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science in the City of New York, 4(4).
Shogan, R. 2010. Prelude to Catastrophe. Ivan Dee.
Slomovitz, P. 1981. Purely Commentary. Wayne State University Press.
Sombart, W. 1911/1982. The Jews and Modern Capitalism. Transaction.
Stein, L. 1961. The Balfour Declaration. Valentine, Mitchell.
Stern, M. 1974. Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism (vol. 1). Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
Temperley, H. 1924. History of the Peace Conference of Paris (vol. 6). Hodder and Stoughton.
Ward, G. 1989. A First Class Temperament. Harper.
Weber, M. 1983. “President Roosevelt’s campaign to incite war in Europe: The secret Polish documents.” Journal of Historical Review, 4.
Ziff, W. 1938. The Rape of Palestine. Longmans, Green.
Notes

[1] It is clear that Joseph was Jewish: His father, Jacob, was renamed by God as “Israel” (Gen 35:10), and Joseph himself is repeatedly referred to as a “Hebrew” (e.g. Gen 39:14, 41:12).

[2] Roman History, 69.13.

[3] For Seneca’s and Quintilian’s comments, see Stern (1974), pages 431 and 513. For Tacitus, see his Annals (XV, 44), and Histories (5.8).

[4] History of Rome, vol. 4, p. 643.

[5] Ecce Homo! (1770/1813: 26, 28)

[6] Cited in Hertzberg (1968: 300).

[7] For Kant, see his Conflict of the Faculties (1798/1979: 101). Hegel’s quotation is from his Early Theological Writings (1975: 190).

[8] This is just a fraction of the negative observations of Jews over the centuries. For a more complete study, see my series Dalton (2011a, 2011b, 2011c, and 2012).

[9] A large area, comprising much of present-day Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Belarus.

[10] In 1891 the New York Times ran the headline: “Russia’s Fierce Assault: Europe amazed at her treatment of Jews.” As the article explained, “Berlin…is overwhelmed by the advance wave of the flying Jews, driven on a day’s notice from their homes and swarming westward…” (May 31; p. 1).

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[11] Cited in Rather (1990: 163).

[12] Cited in Levy (1991: 83-84).

[13] There are a few problems, however. First, the diary is dated some five months after the war actually started; it’s easy to recall a prediction after the fact. Second, Rosenthal’s book My Siberian Diary is nowhere to be found. The entry is recounted in an obscure periodical, The Jewish Era, dated January 1919 (p. 128); this was not only after the war was over, but after the Peace Conference had already begun.

[14] This was true of both Zionist and non-Zionist Jews. It’s worth noting that Zionism was a minority view among American Jews, at least for the first two decades of its existence. Many Jews, being ‘internationalists,’ did not feel the need for a Jewish homeland. And many realized that, should this come to pass, they would be charged with dual loyalty. But with the Zionists’ relentless pressure and record of success, they became the dominant view.

[15] For a contemporaneous account, see the London Times, 11 July 1911, p. 5.

[16] Cited in Slomovitz (1981: 6-7).

[17] Cited in Dearborn Independent (25 June 1921).

[18] April 11, p. 18. The same article goes on to decry “the systematic, relentless quiet grinding down of a people of more than 6,000,000 souls.” This figure surely strikes a chord—but that’s another story.

[19] Indeed—a “special effort” was made to get the support of Wilson, “whose influence was rising within the Democratic ranks” (p. 32).

[20] The Jews and Modern Capitalism (1911/1982), p. 44.

[21] Shogan (2010: xi).

[22] Dearborn Independent, 11 June 1921. The entire ‘international Jew’ series ran without a byline, and so for the sake of convenience I attribute them to Ford—even though it is virtually certain that he did not write the pieces himself.

[23] Cooper (1983: 194).

[24] War Expenditures: Parts 1 to 13. US Government Printing Office (1921: 1814, 1816).

[25] Cited in Chalberg (1995: 46-47).

[26] Other Americans died on foreign-flagged ships—most notoriously, 128 on the Lusitania. But this still pales in comparison to the thousands who would die in a war.

[27] Online at: www.historymatters.gmu.edu. I am not aware of any polling data supporting his claim that 90% of Americans were opposed to entering the war, but it seems to have been a reasonable estimate.

[28] Cited in Chalberg (1995: 71-73).

[29] Schneer (2010: 153) is typical: there was “no such thing” as a powerful Jewish force in world affairs. Any thoughts to the contrary are “based upon a misconception.” Hodgson (2006: 154-155) is another example: “the influence of Zionism [was] considerably exaggerated” by the British government, who believed the international Jews to be “more influential and more Zionist than in fact they were.”

[30] Jews had nearly a total monopoly on the film business. The only significant non-Jewish movie mogul was Darryl Zanuck, who was a studio head at 20th Century Fox for many years.

[31] Among the leading figures, Ben-Sasson (p. 944) mentions Julius Martov, Fyodor Dan, and Raphael Abramowitz.

[32] Churchill’s close connection to British Jews dated back at least to 1904. Gilbert (2007: 9) explains that “this was the first but not the last time that Churchill was to be accused by his political opponents…of being in the pocket, and even in the pay, of wealthy Jews.” Makovsky (2007) describes Churchill’s father’s longtime association with “Jewish financial titans,” and notes that Churchill himself “came to count many of [his father’s] wealthy Jewish friends as his own” (p. 46).

[33] Encyclopedias are usually good sources for conventional views. Quotations here come from the World Book, 2003 edition, entry on ‘Balfour Declaration.’

[34] See Stein (1961: 28).

[35] See Lloyd George (1939: 725), Ziff (1938: 55), Stein (1961: 528), and Liebreich (2005: 12).

[36] Minutes of the War Cabinet for October 31; see Ingrams (1972: 16).

[37] As I will explain in Part II, there is ample evidence that this was true. For a review of some of the relevant sources, see Weber (1983). In brief, it seems that Roosevelt wanted England and France to do the early ‘dirty work’ of the war, and then the US would intervene as needed to conclude the issue.

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The Jewish Hand in the World Wars, Part 2

UnzReview
THOMAS DALTON • JUNE 1, 2014 • 16,800 WORDS • 71 COMMENTS • REPLY

In Part 1 of this article, I provided an account of the Jewish role in the events leading up to World War One, with an emphasis on their influence in the UK and United States. Woodrow Wilson was shown to be the first American president elected with the full backing of the Jewish lobby, and he responded by placing several Jews into leading roles in his administration. They were also seen as having decisive influence at the time of Wilson’s declaration of war in April 1917. On the British side, Prime Minister David Lloyd George was a Christian Zionist and ideological compatriot of the Jews, and equally eager to support their aims. Britain leveraged Jewish support through the Balfour Declaration of November 1917, which promised the Zionists a homeland in Palestine; it was their reward for their having brought the US into the conflict some seven months earlier.

Such actions were shown to be part of a long-standing historical trend: one of Jewish activists and agitators inciting turmoil and even war whenever they stood to benefit. Wars, of course, are not only events of great death and destruction; they provide tremendous opportunity for financial profit, and for dramatic shifts in global power structures. For those in the right position, warfare can yield significant gains in wealth and influence.

Specifically, the events surrounding the First World War brought substantial gains to Jews worldwide—in several ways. First, with highly-placed individuals in the Taft and Wilson administrations, the US was very amenable to Jewish immigration; in fact their numbers increased dramatically, from 1.5 million to over 3 million between 1905 and 1920—on the way to 4 million by the mid-1920s. Second was the Balfour Declaration, which promised them Palestine. Granted, nothing was immediately delivered as to Palestine, but even so, it was a major concession by a world power. Third, the world order was changed in their favor: the hated and “anti-Semitic” Czarist rule in Russia was replaced by the Jewish-led Bolshevik movement, the hated and “anti-Semitic” Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany was replaced by the Jewish-friendly Weimar regime, and the Jewish-influenced governments of the US and Great Britain reestablished their global dominance.

Finally, and as always, there was money to be made. Running the War Industries Board for Wilson, Jewish Financier Bernard Baruch had extraordinary power to direct military spending; we can be sure that his preferred clients benefitted.[1] But perhaps Nebraska Senator George Norris said it best. Speaking in opposition to Wilson’s call for a war declaration, Norris exclaimed that Americans were being deceived “by the almost unanimous demand of the great combination of wealth that has a direct financial interest in our participation in the war.” Furthermore, “a large number of great newspapers and news agencies of the country have been controlled and enlisted in the greatest propaganda that the world has ever known, to manufacture sentiment in favor of war.” Summarizing his case, Norris said this: “We are going into war upon the command of gold.”[2] Finance, media, ‘gold’—Jewish interests prospered on many fronts.

But Wilson was evidently unaffected by such matters, or by his pledge to his fellow Americans to “keep us out of war.” His team of Jewish backers and advisors—Baruch, but also Henry Morgenthau Sr., Jacob Schiff, Samuel Untermyer, Paul Warburg, Stephen Wise, and Louis Brandeis—wanted war, and war they got. The fact that it would cost America $250 billon (current equivalent), and some 116,000 war dead, did not seem to figure into their calculations.

The main topic of the present essay is World War Two, but its roots lie in the outcome of the First World War. I therefore continue the story from that time.

Some Context
Before proceeding, we must bear something in mind. The striving of Jews for greater influence and political power is to be found on both of the sides of World War I. Russian imperial leaders had long been suspicious of the Jews, and largely banished them to the so-called Pale of Settlement that was established in western Russia in the 1790s. Beginning in the 1880s, western media issued exaggerated reports of slaughters, pogroms, and assorted massacres among the Russian Jews there, whose aggregate numbers of victims were nearly always recorded—astonishingly—as “6 million.”[3]

This naturally generated deep hostility toward the House of Romanov, and many Jews sought its demise. Special animosity was reserved for Czar Nicholas II, who assumed power in 1894. In Part 1, I explained the stunningly successful effort of the American Jewish lobby to abrogate the long-standing US-Russia treaty in 1911; this was a small punishment aimed at the Czar. The ultimate goal, though, was his overthrow, and thus we can imagine the joy of the global Jewish community at his fall in March 1917. As we recall, the Czar and his family were then murdered by Jewish Bolsheviks in July of the following year.

It was a somewhat similar story with the German ruler Wilhelm II, who acceded to the throne in 1888. There, however, Jews were prosperous and enjoyed a relatively high degree of freedom—despite the Kaiser’s evident personal dislike of them.[4] Previously I cited some impressive statistics by Sarah Gordon regarding their numbers in law, media, business, and academia, all prior to World War I. In the banking sector, they utterly flourished; prominent German-Jewish banking families included the well-known Rothschilds and Warburgs, but also the Mendelssohns, Bleichroeders, Speyers, Oppenheims, Bambergers, Gutmanns, Goldschmidts, and Wassermanns. But despite their wealth and success, Jews had no access to political power, owing to the hereditary monarchy. This, for them, was unacceptable. Thus they had to introduce “democracy”—with all due high-minded values, of course. Only through a democratic system could they exert direct influence on political leadership.

Photograph from the archives of the League of Nations shows a soldier killed in World War I. The war raged for more than four years, from August 1914 to November 1918, and resulted in the deaths of more than nine million combatants. As many as seven million civilians also were killed in the war or died as a consequence of it.[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Photograph from the archives of the League of Nations shows a soldier killed in World War I. The war raged for more than four years, from August 1914 to November 1918, and resulted in the deaths of more than nine million combatants. As many as seven million civilians also were killed in the war or died as a consequence of it.[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Consequently, as soon as the Czar fell in Russia, calls came out to repeat the success in Germany. On 19 March 1917, four days after the Czar’s ouster, the New York Times reported on Louis Marshall lauding the event, and adding that “the revolt against autocracy might be expected to spread to Germany.” Two days later, Jewish speakers at Madison Square Garden “predict[ed] an uprising in Germany.” As the article explains, “[some] predicted that the revolution of the working classes of Russia was the forerunner of similar revolutions the world over. That the next revolution would be in Germany was predicted by a number of the speakers” (March 21). On March 24, Jacob Schiff took credit for helping to finance the Russian revolution. At the same time, Rabbi Stephen Wise put the blame for the pending American entry into World War I on “German militarism,” adding “I would to God it were possible for us to fight side by side with the German people for the overthrow of Hohenzollernism [i.e., Kaiser Wilhelm].”

Strangely enough, Wise got his wish. Within two weeks, America was in the war. And about 18 months later, Wilhelm would succumb to uprisings in the ranks of his forces and be compelled to abdicate.

The Paris Peace Conference
Having won the war, Wilson’s Jewish team was anxious to dictate the peace. “As it turned out,” remarks Robert Shogan (2010: 25), “the war would bring benefits to the Zionist cause, in part because of Brandeis’ role as a trusted advisor [to Wilson].” The victorious nations convened in Paris in January 1919, and the American Jewish Congress was there as its own delegation. Shogan adds that “[Stephen] Wise was in Paris, on assignment from President Wilson to head the Zionist delegation to the peace talks.” (One might reasonably ask: Why do Zionists get their own delegation at all?) Louis Marshall was also prominent there among the American Jews.

The Jewish aim was neither a just implementation of peace, nor fair treatment of Germany, but rather to maximize benefit to the various Jewish communities of Europe and the US. “At the beginning of 1919,” says Ben-Sasson (1976: 940), “diplomatic activity in Paris became the main focus of the various attempts to fulfill Jewish aspirations.” Fink (1998: 259) concurs: “In March 1919, pro-Zionist and nationalist Jewish delegations arrived in Paris.” Nearly every victorious nation, it seems, had its own Jewish representatives. Some sought formal and explicit Jewish rights in their own nations, and others worked for recognition of a Jewish national state. Polish Jews were notable beneficiaries; they succeeded in achieving explicit mention in the Polish Treaty for Minority Rights.

Writing shortly after the event, Irish philosopher and journalist Emile Dillon saw it this way:

Of all the collectivities whose interests were furthered at the Conference, the Jews had perhaps the most resourceful and certainly the most influential exponents. There were Jews from Palestine, from Poland, Russia, the Ukraine, Rumania, Greece, Britain, Holland, and Belgium; but the largest and most brilliant contingent was sent by the United States. (1920: 12)

Describing the American side, Fink explains that “the fervent Zionist Julius Mack and the more moderate Louis Marshall quickly overshadowed the leading American anti-nationalists, Henry Morgenthau, Oscar Straus, and Cyrus Adler.”

Though he was predisposed to be sympathetic to the Jewish plight, Dillon nonetheless noted that a “religious” or “racial” bias “lay at the root of Mr. Wilson’s policy” (496). It is a fact, he said, “that a considerable number of delegates believed that the real influences behind the Anglo-Saxon peoples were Semitic.” Summarizing prospects for the future, he remarked on the general conclusion by many at Paris: “Henceforth the world will be governed by the Anglo-Saxon peoples, who, in turn, are swayed by their Jewish elements.”

Among non-Jewish Americans there was a young Herbert Hoover, then-Secretary of the US Food Administration, and of course, future president. He was accompanied by a Jewish assistant, the financier Lewis Strauss, who remarked on his boss’s notable inclination to “champion Jewish rights,” especially in Poland.[5 ] Strauss would later become instrumental in funding early development of the atomic bomb.

Treatment of the Germans at the conference, as is well known, was brutally harsh. They expected, and were promised, that the conference would be a fair settlement of the legitimate war claims of all belligerents—particularly given the complex and convoluted nature of the outbreak of hostilities. (We recall: the Archduke was assassinated by a Serb in June 1914; the Russian army mobilized and massed on the German border in July; a threatened Germany declared war on Russia in August; a Franco-Russian Pact required a simultaneous declaration against France; and Britain declared war on Germany as soon as Germany’s army crossed into Belgium.) By the time of the Peace Conference, Wilson and his team had decided that Germany alone was responsible for the war, and thus had to bear the full burden of reparations.[6 ] The impossible conditions forced upon them set the stage for the rise of National Socialism and the next great war.

All in all, what emerges from the first war and the subsequent peace conference is a picture of British and American supplication to Jewish interests. Indeed, the prime beneficiaries of the war were Jews, both in America and in Europe generally. For Germany, it was obviously a disastrous event; it suffered some 2 million military deaths along with thousands of indirect civilian losses, crushing financial debts, and witnessed the end of the 900-year reign of the House of Hohenzollern. This was a tragedy for a nation that, according to Fay (1928: 552), “did not plot a European war, did not want one, and made genuine…efforts to avert one.”

America, which had no legitimate interest in the battles in Europe, was drawn in by Wilson’s compliance with Jewish demands. For his part, Wilson comes across as something of an amoral political schemer. MacMillan (2010: 7) describes his close, “possibly romantic,” relationships with several other women during his first marriage. Theodore Roosevelt viewed him “as insincere and cold-blooded an opportunist as we have ever had in the presidency” (ibid: 6). To Lloyd-George, he was “tactless, obstinate, and vain.” Granted, we all have our faults; but for most of us, they do not lead to national catastrophe.

The Jewish Revolutions
With the fall of Czar Nicholas in March 1917, and upon the Bolshevik revolution of October that same year, Jewish revolutionaries became particularly active in East and Central Europe. Flush with success in Russia, they hoped to duplicate events in other countries. Ben-Sasson provides a typically understated account:

The new forces that emerged in many countries…opened up new horizons of activity for Jewish statesmen of liberal-democratic propensities, particularly those with radical-revolutionary views. … Jews were also extremely active in the socialist parties that came to power or attained political importance in many European countries. They were even more prominent in the communist parties that split from the socialists… In short, never before in European history had so many Jews played such an active part in political life and filled such influential roles… (1976: 943)

In other words, Jewish anarchists and militant communists (“new forces”) conducted violent insurrection (“new horizons of activity”) aimed at overthrowing the ruling governments, and installing Jewish-led regimes. Bermant (1977: 160) confirms this point: “most of the leading revolutionaries who convulsed Europe in the final decades of the last [19th] century and the first decades of [the 20th], stemmed from prosperous Jewish families.” This again is in keeping with the longstanding trend of Jewish rebellion.

Not that any of this was news; major politicians of the time knew it well. Lord Balfour, for example, once remarked to Wilson’s aide Edward House that “nearly all Bolshevism and disturbances of a like nature, are directly traceable to the Jews of the world. They seem determined either to have what they want or to upset present civilization.”[7]

Béla Kun, leader of the 1919 Hungarian Revolution
By Hungarian photographer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Béla Kun, leader of the 1919 Hungarian Revolution
By Hungarian photographer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Consider Hungary, for example. There, a Hungarian Jew named Béla Kun (Kohn) founded and led the local wing of the Russian Communist Party in early 1918 that later became an independent entity. Along with Jewish colleagues Matyas Rakosi (Roth/Rosenfeld) and Otto Korvin (Klein), Kun’s party organized numerous strikes and conducted violent and subversive attacks against President Karolyi and the ruling Social Democrats. In March 1919 Karolyi resigned, and the SD Party proposed an alliance of necessity with Kun’s communists, in the hope of leveraging his connections to the Russian Bolsheviks. Kun agreed to the proposal, on the condition that the government reestablish itself as the “Hungarian Soviet Republic,” which it did.

Kun dominated the new government, filling many top seats with Jews; as Muller (2010: 153) explains, “Of the government’s 49 commissars, 31 were of Jewish origin.”[8] He fended off a coup attempt in June, and then conducted what came to be known as the “Red Terror”; this was a paramilitary group, led by Jewish ideologues Georg Lukacs and Tibor Szamuely, that hunted down and killed members of the local opposition. Unfortunately for Kun, ongoing conflicts with neighboring Romania led to an invasion of Hungary, and the promised Russian aid never materialized. Kun and his fellow Jews were driven out in August, just 133 days after taking power.

It was not only Russia and Hungary that had problems. “Jews had a prominent role in Communist parties elsewhere,” explains Bermant (172). In Poland, for example, “about a quarter of party members and about a third of delegates to party congresses were Jews.” The Polish Communists were unable, however, to generate sufficient force to oust the newly-established government of Józef Piłsudski.

It was in Germany, though, that the most significant actions occurred, ones that would have a lasting effect. We need to recall events at the end of World War I. Long a stalemate, the war had essentially become a battle of attrition. American forces on the ground in mid to late 1917 threatened to change things, but for the Germans, the western front generally held up—even to the very end. At no point in time did it ever retreat into German territory. But even though the Germans were able to hold out, their allies could not. Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire surrendered by the end of October 1918. Austria-Hungary yielded in early November. For the Germans, though, the last straw was their problems at home—with the Jews.

Trouble began with a minor naval mutiny in late October and early November 1918 at the ports of Kiel and Wilhelmshaven. A number of sailors, workers, and Jews from the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) joined forces to conduct a nonviolent rebellion against the Kaiser. The German rebels simply wanted the war to end, whereas the Jewish rebels sought power; in this sense it was a natural alliance. The “rebellion”—primarily in the form of a general strike—quickly spread, reaching Munich within a matter of days. In an attempt to cut short this action, the majority Social Democrats (SPD) called on the Kaiser to abdicate, at which time they would form a republican government. On November 9, they prevailed; Wilhelm stepped down and a new “German Republic” was proclaimed. It was this new leadership that signed the armistice agreement on November 11, ending the war.

The USPD rebels, however, had their own plans. On the very same day that the German Republic was created, they declared the formation of a “Free Socialist Republic.” This group had an almost entirely Jewish leadership: Rosa Luxemburg, Hugo Haase, Karl Liebknecht (half-Jewish), Leo Jogiches, Karl Radek (Sobelsohn), and Alexander Parvus (Gelfand) were the dominant figures. And these were just the activists centered in Berlin. In Munich, other Jewish rebels were conducting a separate, simultaneous revolution, aimed at creating a Bavarian communist state. The leading USPD revolutionary there was a Jewish journalist, Kurt Eisner. On November 7, he demanded the abdication of the local monarch, King Ludwig III. The king fled on the following day, and Eisner declared himself “Minister-President” of a free Bavarian state.

Kurt Eisner demanded the abdication of King Ludwig III on November 7, 1918. The King fled on the following day, and Eisner declared himself “Minister-President” of a free Bavarian state.
Robert Sennecke [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Kurt Eisner demanded the abdication of King Ludwig III on November 7, 1918. The King fled on the following day, and Eisner declared himself “Minister-President” of a free Bavarian state.
Robert Sennecke [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Soon enough, though, Eisner’s luck ran out. On 21 February 1919, he was assassinated by a fellow Jew, Anton Arco-Valley. Within a few weeks, other USPD Jews regained power and established a Bavarian Soviet Republic—the third in Europe, behind Russia and Hungary. Its leader was the Jewish playwright Ernst Toller. Among his group were the noted Jewish anarchists Gustav Landauer and Erich Muehsam. Through sheer incompetency, Toller’s government managed to get usurped by yet another Jewish faction, one led by Eugen Levine and the half-Jew Otto Neurath. Levine attempted to institute a true communist system, including its own “Red Army” modeled on the Russians’. But once again, his success was short-lived. Remnants of the old German army quickly intervened, deposing the communists in early May.

Things did not end well for the Jewish rebels. Levine was captured and executed, as was Landauer. Toller, Muehsam, Radek, Parvus, and Neurath managed to escape. Luxemburg and Liebknecht were shot by German soldiers in January 1919, and Jogiches died under mysterious circumstances in March. Haase was killed by a deranged worker in November of that same year.

But that was far from the end of their influence in Germany. The USPD was reconstituted as the German Communist Party (KPD), under the leadership of Paul Levi. The ruling SPD had meanwhile joined forces with the moderate German Democratic Party (DDP), convening in January 1919 in the city of Weimar to create a constitutional form of government. Jews were front and center in both of these parties: Otto Landesberg, Eduard Bernstein, and Rudolf Hilferding in the SPD, and Walter Rathenau in the DDP; Rathenau was eventually named as German Foreign Minister.[9] His Jewish colleague, Hugo Preuss, wrote the Weimar constitution. This Jewish influence was well described by a philo-Semitic and Pulitzer-Prize-winning American journalist, Edgar Mowrer. Writing in 1933, he noted that

a large number of Jews entered the Social Democratic Party [SDP] which inherited power as a result of the [November] Revolution. Other Jews flocked to the Democratic Party [DDP], a group which certainly overlooked no chance to favor the interests of trade, banking and the stock exchange… (1933: 227)

It is interesting that then, as now, they seem to have covered all the bases: liberal, left-wing Jews dominated the SPD, and capitalist, right-wing Jews dominated the DDP. Thus, no matter which party emerged with control, Jews retained influence. Confirming my earlier statements, Mowrer added that “a number of outspoken revolutionary leaders, Rosa Luxemburg in Berlin, Erich Muehsam and Ernst Toller in Munich, were Jews.” He continued:

In post-war politics any number of Jews rose to leadership. Both in the Reich and in the Federal States, Jews, particularly Social Democrats, became Cabinet Ministers. In the bureaucracy, the Jews rose rapidly to leading positions, and until about 1930 their number seemed on the increase.

Summing up the situation, he observed that, “in short, after the Revolution, the Jews came in Germany to play in politics and administration that same considerable part that they had previously won by open competition in business, trade, banking, the Press, the arts, the sciences, and the intellectual and cultural life of the country” (228).

The new Weimar Republic was duly signed into law in August 1919. Unsurprisingly, it was notably friendly to German Jews, removing all remnants of legal obstructions, and granting them full access to business, academia, and government—the very process that Mowrer described. As Lavsky (1996: 41) says, “All remaining discrimination was abolished and there were no restrictions on participation in German public life.” The vital role played by Weimar Jews is concisely explained by Walter Laqueur:

Without the Jews there would have been no ‘Weimar culture’—to this extent the claims of the antisemites, who detested that culture, were justified. They were in the forefront of every new daring, revolutionary movement. They were prominent among Expressionist poets, among the novelists of the 1920s, among the theatrical producers and, for a while, among the leading figures of the cinema. They owned the leading liberal newspapers such as the Berliner Tageblatt, the Vossische Zeitung and the Frankfurter Zeitung, and many editors were Jews too. Many leading liberal and avant-garde publishing houses were in Jewish hands (S. Fischer, Kurt Wolff, the Cassirers, Georg Bondi, Erich Reiss, the Malik Verlag). Many leading theatre critics were Jews, and they dominated light entertainment. (1974: 73)

Laqueur, however, does not explain that the celebrated “Weimar culture” was perhaps best known for its licentiousness, promiscuity, and general moral depravity.[10] “They established themselves in the universities, civil service, law, business, banking, and the free professions,” adds Lavsky. “Certain spheres were virtually monopolized by the Jews, and their contribution to journalism, literature, theater, music, the plastic arts, and entertainment was considerable.”

It was this very centrality of Jews to social upheaval, the November Revolution, and the new Weimar Republic that led three German activists and intellectuals—Anton Drexler, Gottfried Feder, and Dietrich Eckart—to found the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (DAP) in January 1919. This would be the forerunner to the National Socialist DAP (NSDAP), or Nazi Party. One of their first recruits was a distraught 30-year-old former soldier, Adolf Hitler.

In Mein Kampf, Hitler describes in painful, personal detail how the young German men went to fight and die on the front lines even as the Jewish activists and rebels undermined the imperial government back home. Calling them “hoary criminals,” he adds that, all the while, “these perjured criminals were making preparations for a revolution” (I.5).[11] Upon a medical leave from the front in October 1916, he describes the situation in Munich:

Anger, discontent, complaints met one’s ears wherever one went. … The administrative offices were staffed by Jews. Almost every clerk was a Jew and every Jew was a clerk. … In the business world the situation was even worse. Here the Jews had actually become ‘indispensable.’ Like leeches, they were slowly sucking the blood from the pores of the national body. … Hence as early as 1916-1917 practically all production was under the control of Jewish finance. (I.7)

Hitler returned to the front in March 1917, and was struck by a mustard gas attack in October of the following year. The gas severely burned his eyes, sending him to a military hospital for recovery. It was there that he first heard about the revolution. The Jewish-Marxist “gang of despicable and depraved criminals” had led the overthrow of the Emperor and were attempting to take direct power themselves. Their revolts would be transitory, but the Jewish-influenced Weimar regime would soon take control of the nation, and this was scarcely any better. It was these events that led Hitler to become politically active.

The Interwar Period and Emergence of FDR
1920 was a year of some importance. The Hitler-led NSDAP was formally established in February. That same month, a 46-year-old Winston Churchill penned his infamous article “Zionism versus Bolshevism,” in which he decried the pernicious role of Jewish Marxists such as Trotsky, Kun, Luxemburg, and the American Emma Goldman.[12] And in the US, Henry Ford had just begun his two-year series on the “International Jew.”

The following year, in late 1921, Ford recalled his past efforts to bring a peaceful end to WWI.[13] During that earlier time, he says, “it was the Jews themselves that convinced me of the direct relation between the international Jew and war.”

[They explained to me] the means by which the Jew controlled the war, how they had the money, how they had cornered all the basic materials needed to fight the war… They said…that the Jews had started the war; that they would continue it as long as they wished, and that until the Jew stopped the war, it could not be stopped. (New York Times, 5 December 1921, p. 33)

This was a recurrent theme in Ford’s “International Jew” series.

Meanwhile across the ocean, Lenin (a quarter-Jew) and his Jewish Bolshevik colleagues established the Soviet Union in December of 1922. The next year, Hitler and others within the NSDAP launched a failed coup attempt in Bavaria, leading to his 12-month imprisonment and consequent writing of Mein Kampf. In early 1924, both Lenin and Woodrow Wilson died within a month of each other.

Little of note occurred during the mid- to late-1920s. Jewish immigration into the US continued to expand, with their numbers surpassing 4.3 million by 1927. Jews made further inroads into Hollywood; Marcus Loew acquired MGM studios, the Cohn brothers took over at Columbia Broadcasting System, and David Sarnoff founded RKO Pictures. In the political sphere, the Republican and Christian Zionist Herbert Hoover won the presidential election of 1928, and a relatively unknown Democrat, Franklin D. Roosevelt, won the governorship of New York.

From the start, FDR had close and persistent ties to American Jews—ties that would prove decisive to his actions in the Second World War. His running mate in New York was Herbert Lehman, the son of German Jews. (His Republican opponent, Jewish Attorney General Albert Ottinger, failed to draw the Jewish vote that FDR did; this says something about the strength of FDR’s connection to that group.) Upon assuming the governorship, Roosevelt “filled a number of key positions from the state’s large Jewish population,” according to Shogan (2010: 5). One of his first major appointments was his longtime friend Henry Morgenthau Jr. to the New York State Agriculture Committee. He also named a former speechwriter, Samuel Rosenman, as “counsel to the governor.” Both would play important roles in his presidency.

Franklin D. Roosevelt arm in arm with Henry Morgenthau Jr.
U.S. National Archives and Records Administration [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Franklin D. Roosevelt arm in arm with Henry Morgenthau Jr.
U.S. National Archives and Records Administration [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Other Jews, though, also had an interest in FDR—notably, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and his protégé, Harvard lawyer Felix Frankfurter. Even prior to his gubernatorial win in New York, “Brandeis alerted Frankfurter to his eagerness to connect with the man he believed would someday be the nation’s president” (ibid: 72). And indeed, “for the next four years Brandeis was content to rely on Frankfurter to be his conduit to the governor’s chambers in Albany.”

The same election that put Roosevelt in the governor’s seat placed Hoover in the presidency. As I noted earlier, he had long championed Jewish interests. As president, Hoover did his part for the Hebrews, naming Eugene Meyer Fed Chairman in 1930, and appointing the second Jewish justice, Benjamin Cardozo, to the Supreme Court in March 1932. But by then the Great Depression was well underway, dooming any chance for reelection.

FDR’s Jewish Ancestry?
Before turning to FDR’s long and historic stint as president, I want to recall a question I raised in Part 1 of the present series: Was Roosevelt Jewish? Previously I noted that his fifth cousin Theodore claimed to be Jewish, according to former Michigan governor Chase Osborn. I have yet to find any independent confirmation of this assertion, though there seems to be no reason why Osborn would lie about such a thing. Both were good Republicans, after all. But more to the point, Osborn would have much to say about FDR, as I will explain momentarily.

Franklin left many clues to a possible Jewish heritage, beginning as far back as 1914. In a letter to a friend upon the birth of his son Franklin Jr., he wrote that he had considered naming him Isaac—a classic Jewish name, and one shared by both his grandfather and great-great-grandfather. But the family resisted: “this name is not met with enthusiasm, especially as the baby’s nose is slightly Hebraic and the family have visions of Ikey Rosenvelt, though I insist it is very good New Amsterdam Dutch.”[14] For Shogan this is a sign of latent anti-Semitism, but I find that an unlikely excuse. What true anti-Semite would admit that his newborn son looked Jewish? Or would contemplate a Jewish name? More likely it was an inside joke, of the kind that people might say to family or close friends about a particular ethnic heritage within one’s own background.

Twenty years later, another clue. In 1934, now-president FDR gave a photo of himself and Henry Morgenthau to Henry’s wife. It bore this inscription: “For Elinor from one of two of a kind.”[15]Yes, but two of what kind? Democrats? Americans? Jews? An oddly suggestive remark.

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That same year saw the publication of an enlightening interview with Osborn, one that would initiate a prolonged discussion on FDR’s heritage. The 8 February 1934 edition of the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times carried an interview in which Osborn claimed that the Roosevelts were descended from the Rossacampos, a Jewish family expelled from Spain in 1620. That family spread out into Europe and altered their spelling according to the various places where they took root: Rosenberg, Rosenblum, Rosenthal, and in Holland, Rosenvelt. “The Rosenvelts in north Holland finally became Roosevelt,” claimed Osborn—which in fact seems to be true: the family patriarch, Claes van Rosenvelt, immigrated to the US in 1649. His son Nicholas apparently dropped the ‘van’ and changed the spelling to the familiar form.

A small Michigan publication, Civic Echo, picked up and repeated the story soon thereafter. A year later, Jewish journalist and publisher Philip Slomovitz came across the Echo story, and decided to write directly to FDR to get his opinion. On 7 March 1935 the president responded:

I am grateful to you for your interesting letter of March fourth. I have no idea as to the source of the story which you say came from my old friend, Chase Osborn. … In the dim distant past they [the Roosevelts] may have been Jews or Catholics or Protestants—what I am more interested in is whether they were good citizens and believers in God—I hope they were both. (cited in Slomovitz 1981: 5)

Once again this is a suspiciously circumspect reply by FDR. For him to say that his relatives “may have been Jews” sounds very much as if he knows this truth, does not want to openly acknowledge it, but cannot quite bring himself to lie about it.

Slomovitz planned to publish the reply in his Detroit Jewish Chronicle. Before he could do so, the New York Times got wind of it and carried the text in their issue of March 15—on page 1.

Slomovitz passed this reply on to Osborn, who repeated his original assertion in a return letter of March 21: “President Roosevelt knows well enough that his ancestors were Jewish. I heard Theodore Roosevelt state twice that his ancestors were Jewish. Once was to me when I asked him about it after he had made a pleasing euphemistic statement in a speech to a Jewish gathering” (ibid: 6-7). Osborn is adamant. And it is important to note that he does not take this Jewish heritage as a slur; in fact, quite the opposite. He is evidently a Christian Zionist (and Republican), and thus views it as a redeeming quality. As such, he would likely not cast the Democrat Franklin in this positive light unless he actually believed it to be true. It seems that he was talking from a factual, if unconfirmed, basis.

If Slomovitz was inclined to doubt Osborn’s claim, another letter would soon fortify his belief. On March 27 he received a note from none other than Rabbi Stephen Wise of New York City. Wise had evidently seen the New York Times story, and wrote to confirm it. In his letter he recounts an “almost literal transcript” given to him by his wife, who had previously attended a luncheon with Roosevelt’s wife Eleanor—who said the following: “Often cousin Alice and I say that all the brains in the Roosevelt family comes [sic] from our Jewish great-grandmother” (ibid: 9). She then allegedly added a name, ‘Esther Levy.’ The Alice in question was the oldest child of Theodore; Eleanor’s father Elliot was his brother. Their common great-grandmother would have been either Margaret Barnhill or Martha Stewart—neither of whom appears to be Jewish, unfortunately. And we have no record of any Esther Levy in the Roosevelt lineage. A bit of a mystery.

The letter then takes a little twist. Eleanor continued: “Whenever mention is made of our Jewish great-grandmother by cousin Alice or myself, Franklin’s mother [Sara Delano] gets very angry and says, ‘You know that is not so. Why do you say it?’” Another puzzling remark, and one that Wise leaves unexplained.

Wise closes the letter with his own assessment: that Roosevelt “knows what I [Wise] have just written to be true, but deems it wiser and more expedient not to make any public mention of it at this time.” The letter, after all, was marked “Strictly private and confidential.” Wise adds that “you [Slomovitz] must not, however, make use of this. I think it is just as well to let the matter die down now.” A strange series of comments, to be sure.

Many years later, a final small clue appeared. From the mid-1920s to mid-1930s, Franklin’s daughter Anna was married to a stockbroker named Curtis Dall. After having two children, they divorced in 1934. Three decades later Dall published a book, FDR: My Exploited Father-in-Law(1968). In it we read this sentence: “As I gathered it, the background of the Franklin Roosevelt family was a composite of English, Dutch, Jewish, and French stock” (98). There is no further elaboration.

In the end, many questions remain, but it seems possible that the Roosevelts were at least in part Jewish.[16] Perhaps the larger question is this: Does it matter? I believe it does, on two counts. First is the basic matter of historical accuracy; if we did in fact have a partially Jewish president, or rather two such presidents, the history books ought to reflect this reality. Likely other relevant evidence exists in the vast presidential archives, and an open admission might bring this to light.

Second and more important is the effect this may have had on FDR’s actions prior to and during World War II. With even a partial Jewish heritage, he may have been more sympathetic to the Jewish cause, more amenable to Jews within his administration, and more likely to sacrifice on behalf of Jewish interests. The evidence shows that all these things actually happened—which is precisely why “Franklin Roosevelt was the first great hero of American Jews” (Shogan 2010: xi). The ‘family connection’ would certainly help to explain such things.

Alternatively, and as is often the case today, it could have been strictly a matter of money—of rewarding those who paved one’s way to the top. But perhaps the strongest case is this: that it was a combination of both. If FDR was predisposed by his heritage to be sympathetic to the Jews, and they also stepped forward to fund his campaigns and support him in the media, these would then be powerful incentives to reward them within his administration, and to be swayed by their concerns when it came time to deploy American military power. I examine that case now.

“All the President’s Jews”
The case for a possible Jewish hand in World War II could be made, if we could show the following:

an extensive and influential Jewish presence in FDR’s administration,
that the US public did not want war,
that influential American Jews did want war,
that FDR acted surreptitiously on behalf of war,
that Jewish-run US media supported war, and
that the US entered the war under false pretenses.
I will provide specific data on the first two points, and then address the remaining ones collectively.

Earlier I showed Roosevelt’s dependence on Jewish supporters during his gubernatorial term. When it came time to mount a presidential campaign, his old buddies were there to help. As Scholnick (1990: 193) explains, “A number of wealthy Jewish friends contributed to Roosevelt’s prenomination campaign fund: Henry Morgenthau Jr., Lt. Gov. Lehman, Jesse Straus, [and] Laurence Steinhardt.” Once the primaries were out of the way, “Roosevelt’s campaign was heavily underwritten by Bernard Baruch.”

The first rule in politics is to reward those who finance your path to success. Thus it is unsurprising that “[FDR’s] administration contained a higher proportion of Jews than any other” (Michael 2005: 178). In the words of Herzstein (1989: 40), “Jews were indeed more prominent than ever before in American history.” So who were these leading figures that were so dominant during the Roosevelt years? At the top of the list were the Big 5, the “President’s Jews” as Shogan says, who had the largest hand in swaying events within the presidency: Louis Brandeis, Felix Frankfurter, Henry Morgenthau Jr., Sam Rosenman, and Ben Cohen.

Brandeis was of course a sitting Supreme Court justice long before Roosevelt ran for office, having been placed there by his friend Woodrow Wilson in 1916. Even prior to his initial election in 1932, FDR arranged a meeting with Brandeis to discuss policy. According to Shogan (2010), the Justice soon sent Roosevelt “a broad blueprint for the New Deal” (72). Some years later, in 1938, “Brandeis made his first call on FDR on behalf of the Jews” (83). Such involvement in government administration by a Supreme Court justice is unusual, to say the least. Others would call it flagrantly unethical. Justices are supposed to rule on constitutional matters, not make policy. He obviously knew this, and thus generally worked through Jewish intermediaries, like Frankfurter and Cohen, to get his message to the president.

On a day-to-day basis, Frankfurter was particularly important. Even by 1933 he had become “probably FDR’s most influential advisor” (ibid: 105). Incensed at the extent of his power, American General Hugh Johnson called him “the most influential single individual in the United States” (86).[17] Frankfurter, he said, “had insinuated his boys into obscure but key positions in every vital department” related to the New Deal. Later, when Europe was on the brink of war, Frankfurter was apparently instrumental in initiating a series of secret correspondences between FDR and Churchill at a very sensitive time—neutral presidents are not supposed to be conducting secret negotiations with leaders of belligerent nations.[18] Frankfurter, as we know, would be well rewarded by Roosevelt for his efforts, with the nomination to the Supreme Court in January 1939.

Moving down the list: Roosevelt “was as close to Henry Morgenthau…as to any man” (ibid: 32). So close, in fact, that Franklin would make him the second Jew ever to join a presidential cabinet; he was named Secretary of the Treasury in early 1934, serving right through the end of the war.[19] Henry would later author the notorious “Morgenthau Plan”—a policy for the virtual destruction of postwar Germany. This again was an outrageously out-of-line effort by a treasury secretary, who formally has no business conducting foreign policy. But this evidently did not stop him from trying.

The two youngest members of the Big 5 were Rosenman and Cohen. Though serving as a New York state judge, Rosenman also functioned as “FDR’s chief speechwriter and a leading general advisor” (ibid: 9). Ward (1989: 254) notes that he was “a close aide from 1928 onwards”—that is, even before FDR’s governorship. The lawyer Benjamin Cohen became one of the key drafters of Roosevelt’s vital New Deal legislation, which was his lasting economic legacy. He clearly had the president’s ear; Nasaw (2012: 358) calls him the “unofficial emissary of Justice Brandeis and Felix Frankfurter.”

But more importantly, Cohen was the lead architect and executor of the infamous ‘bases for destroyers’ plan of mid- to late-1940. At that time Britain was well into the war and badly needed military assistance from the US. But as a neutral nation, and by law, the US was unable to help. Cohen then concocted a plan by which America would “loan” 50 warships to the UK in exchange for the use of certain global bases that they held. “Employing hairsplitting technicalities and unprovable assertions about national defense, [Cohen’s] memorandum stretched the law, creating a loophole wide enough for fifty warships to steam through on their way to join the Royal Navy,” says Shogan (152). Seeking legal approval for this blatantly illegal action, Roosevelt turned to…Justice Frankfurter. And to no one’s surprise, the Justice conferred his blessing. The Brits, of course, were elated. For the Germans, this was a veritable act of war by the nominally neutral Americans. Most fatefully, it seems to have been decisive in causing Hitler to sign a mutual-defense pact with Japan in October 1940; it was this agreement that would trigger Germany’s declaration of war on the United States following the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Beyond the Big 5, several other Jews played influential roles. Bernard Baruch, another Wilsonian holdover, was a part-time financial advisor and “prominent confidant” of both FDR and Churchill.[20] Jerome Frank was a close aide, as was David Niles. James Warburg, son of Paul, was an early financial advisor. In May of 1934, Eugene Black was named Fed Chairman, and Jesse Straus was appointed ambassador to France—even as his nephew, Nathan Straus Jr., came to head the US Housing Authority. William Bullitt, a quarter-Jew, was given two critical ambassadorships: first to the Soviet Union, and then, during the war, to France.[21] Laurence Steinhardt, who had helped so much with campaign funding, was awarded a string of ambassadorships throughout FDR’s tenure. Franklin’s old friend Herbert Lehman was appointed head of the new Office of Foreign Relief and Rehabilitation in 1943. Herbert Feis was an influential economics advisor for the State Department. Abe Fortas served as Undersecretary of the Interior. Charles Wyzanski was solicitor general in the Labor Department. Mordecai Ezekiel was economics advisor to the Agriculture Secretary. David Lilienthal became chairman of the TVA. Other Jews, like Sidney Hillman and Rose Schneiderman, emerged as important advisors on labor matters.

Even some of FDR’s non-Jewish team members had Semitic connections. Long-time Secretary of State Cordell Hull’s wife, Frances Witz, was Jewish. So too was the spouse of New Deal architect and close confidant Harry Hopkins (Ethel Gross). We can be sure that they were sympathetic to the Jewish cause. All in all, one can well understand the motivation of Roosevelt’s critics, who derided his administration as the “Jew Deal.”[22]

On the second point, it is uncontroversial that Americans overwhelmingly wanted to avoid the war. In a radio address of 23 April 1941, the leading anti-war advocate, Charles Lindbergh, condemned the course of action “to which more than 80 percent of our citizens are opposed.” In an address the month before, Congressman Hamilton Fish stated that “somewhere between 83 and 90 percent of the people, according to the various Gallop polls, are opposed to our entrance into war unless attacked.”[ 23] The data supported such claims. According to surveys conducted in June and July 1940, between 81 and 86% of respondents preferred to “stay out” of a war, if it were to come up for a vote.[24] Another poll in July 1941 registered a 79% figure.[25] The highest recorded number came somewhat earlier, in a report published in mid-1938; when asked “If another war like the World War [I] develops in Europe, should America take part again?,” fully 95% of the respondents replied “No”.[26] Such figures generally held up right until the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The Path to War
The remaining points become clear, I think, simply by stepping through some key events and observations as they happened chronologically.

As is well known, Jews worldwide confronted Hitler as soon as he assumed power in 1933—witness the infamous “Judea Declares War on Germany” headline in the UK’s Daily Express of 24 March 1933. In a sense, this was understandable. Putting an end to a post-World War I Weimar Republic dominated by Jews, Hitler quickly banished them from positions of power, and placed immediate restrictions on their movement and business activities. In fact, one may speculate that this was not unrelated to Germany’s amazing economic renaissance.

The UK’s Daily Express of 24 March 1933 runs the infamous headline, “Judea Declares War on Germany” announcing that Jews worldwide confronted Hitler as soon as he assumed power.
Source: http://sv.metapedia.org/w/Judea_declares_war_on_Germany
The UK’s Daily Express of 24 March 1933 runs the infamous headline, “Judea Declares War on Germany” announcing that Jews worldwide confronted Hitler as soon as he assumed power.
Source: http://sv.metapedia.org/w/Judea_declares_war_on_Germany
But the Western media did not see it this way. As early as April 1933, the New York Times was reporting on the “economic extermination of Jews in Germany” (April 6). Two months later we read, simply, that “Hitler’s program is one of extermination” (June 29). In August, we are shocked to learn that “600,000 Jews are facing certain extinction” (August 16). Here we can graphically see how the ‘extermination’ myth rapidly evolved, from a plan of economic exclusion.[27]

For the Germans, Western—particularly American—media meant Jewish media. As early as 1934, they viewed it as a potential threat. A communiqué by the German ambassador to the US, Hans Luther, observed that America possessed “the strongest Jewish propaganda machine in the world.”[28] This comment was made in light of Jewish dominance in Hollywood, and the fact that Jews owned two of the major American newspapers, the New York Times and the Washington Post.[29] Luther’s impression was held by the German leadership throughout the war. Goebbels, for example, wrote the following in his diary entry of 24 April 1942: “Some statistics are given to me on the proportion of Jews in American radio, film, and press. The percentage is truly frightening. Jewry controls 100% of the film business, and between 90 and 95% of press and radio.”[30]

By the mid-1930s, Germany was in the midst of their astounding economic recovery, one that was particularly striking given their ruination after World War I, and that it occurred during the Great Depression. Within just his first four years, Hitler had reduced unemployment from 6 million to 1 million; the jobless rate fell from 43.8% when he took office, to effectively zero by the end of 1938. In just four years, he increased GNP by 37%, and oversaw a 400% increase in auto production. In effect, he single-handedly ended the Depression in Germany. Two more years, and the nation would be a world power of the first rank.

Germany thus emerged as a viable competitor to the traditional global powers. Churchill felt particularly threatened. In a congressional testimony, US General Robert Wood recalled a statement by the British politician from 1936: “Germany is getting too strong. We must smash her.”[31] This suggests a belligerence on Churchill’s part long before any aggressions by Hitler. As we know: it was the UK that declared war on Germany, not vice versa.

In October 1937, Roosevelt gave his famous ‘quarantine’ speech. Here we find one of the first indications, albeit indirect, that he anticipates a time when the US would come into direct conflict with Germany, and he subtly propagandizes the public in favor of war. The danger of Hitler is exaggerated; neutrality and isolation are disparaged; baseless assertions and cautiously conditional statements are thrown out—and all in the language of peace. Should Hitler prevail, “let no one imagine that America will escape, … that this Western Hemisphere will not be attacked.” “There is no escape through mere isolation or neutrality,” he said; “international anarchy destroys every foundation for peace.” “We are determined to keep out of war,” said FDR, “yet we cannot insure ourselves against the disastrous effects of war and the dangers of involvement.” Sparing no hyperbole, he added that, if Germany initiates a war, “the storm will rage till every flower of culture is trampled and all human beings are leveled in a vast chaos.” This is difficult to read except as an indication that the path of violent confrontation had already been decided upon, and that the long process had begun to persuade a reluctant public that they must support it.

By this time, Jewish lobbies around the world, but especially in the UK and US, began to press hard for military action, to intervene on behalf of their beleaguered coreligionists in Nazi Germany, and to once again overthrow a hated regime—never mind that the Germans may have had some right to self-determination. One of the first clear pieces of evidence of this came in early 1938, from the Polish ambassador to the US, Jerzy Potocki. He reported back to Warsaw on his observations of the American political scene:

The pressure of the Jews on President Roosevelt and on the State Department is becoming ever more powerful… The Jews are right now the leaders in creating a war psychosis which would plunge the entire world into war and bring about general catastrophe. This mood is becoming more and more apparent. In their definition of democratic states, the Jews have also created real chaos; they have mixed together the idea of democracy and communism, and have above all raised the banner of burning hatred against Nazism.

This hatred has become a frenzy. It is propagated everywhere and by every means: in theaters, in the cinema, and in the press. The Germans are portrayed as a nation living under the arrogance of Hitler which wants to conquer the whole world and drown all of humanity in an ocean of blood. In conversations with Jewish press representatives, I have repeatedly come up against the inexorable and convinced view that war is inevitable. This international Jewry exploits every means of propaganda to oppose any tendency towards any kind of consolidation and understanding between nations. In this way, the conviction is growing steadily but surely in public opinion here that the Germans and their satellites, in the form of fascism, are enemies who must be subdued by the ‘democratic world.’ (February 9)[32]

Such a view is confirmed in a letter by Senator Hiram Johnson (R-Cal.), written to his son that same year. The pro- and anti-war camps were clear: “all the Jews [are] on one side, wildly enthusiastic for the President, and willing to fight to the last American.” Though sympathetic, Johnson had no interest in fighting a war on their behalf. He and other like-minded politicians wanted to speak out, “but everybody is afraid—I confess I shrink from it—of offending the Jews.”[33] The situation has hardly changed in 75 years.

For his part, Bernie Baruch was certainly itching for a fight. Speaking to General George Marshall, he said “We are going to lick that fellow Hitler. He isn’t going to get away with it.”[34]One wonders how he would know this, in 1938. Actually, it’s not much of a mystery: Churchill apparently told him so. As Sherwood (1948: 111) recounts, Churchill—then still First Lord of the Admiralty—said this to Baruch: “War is coming very soon. We will be in it and you (the United States) will be in it. You (Baruch) will be running the show over there, but I will be on the sidelines over here.” This is an astonishing claim; how would Churchill know such a thing, in 1938? The Anschluss with Austria had been completed in March that year, and Germany annexed the Sudetenland in October, but the Munich Accord was signed in September, nominally preserving a kind of tenuous peace. So what could have convinced Churchill that war was inevitable, and that the Americans would be running the show? Kristallnacht, perhaps? Was that the last straw, for the global Jewish lobby?[35]

Apparently Lord Beaverbrook thought so. Writing to Frank Gannett in December 1938, he made this striking statement:

The Jews are after [Prime Minister] Chamberlain. He is being terribly harassed by them… All the Jews are against him… They have got a big position in the press here [in the UK]… I am shaken. The Jews may drive us into war [and] their political influence is moving us in that direction. (cited in Nasaw 2012: 357-358)

Beaverbrook was a prominent and influential media executive and politician, rather like the Rupert Murdoch of his day. He was well positioned to make such a claim.

The year 1939 opened with FDR’s State of the Union speech—and more veiled threats. “We have learned that God-fearing democracies of the world…cannot safely be indifferent to international lawlessness anywhere. They cannot forever let pass, without effective protest, acts of aggression against sister nations.” He consequently called for an unprecedented peacetime allocation of $2 billion for national defense. A message to Hitler—and to all those Americans who might oppose intervention in European affairs.

Hitler, incidentally, was giving his own speeches, most infamously to the Reichstag on January 30. It included this memorable warning:

If the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevization of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation [Vernichtung] of the Jewish race in Europe!

Two quick comments: The German word ‘Vernichtung’ has multiple meanings, and in no way requires the killing of any persons in question. The literal meaning is “to bring to nothing.” More broadly it means to completely remove or eliminate the presence, role, or influence of something. And there are many ways to do this short of murder. But more to the point, Hitler’s alleged program of physical extermination was supposedly a great secret. He cannot possibly have told the world, in the most public of venues, of his ‘secret’ plan to kill all the Jews—in early 1939. Clearly he was referring to their displacement from Europe, and to an elimination of their previously dominant role there. But this was no secret at all—he had been doing that in Germany for some six years already.

Back in Washington, Ambassador Potocki sent two more revealing reports to Warsaw. A short statement on January 9 included this: “The American public is subject to an ever more alarming propaganda, which is under Jewish influence and continuously conjures up the specter of the danger of war. Because of this, the Americans have strongly altered their views on foreign policy problems, in comparison with last year.” Three days later came the longest and perhaps most insightful report:

The feeling now prevailing in the United States is marked by a growing hatred of Fascism and, above all, of Chancellor Hitler and everything connected with Nazism. Propaganda is mostly in the hands of the Jews, who control almost 100 percent radio, film, daily and periodical press. Although this propaganda is extremely coarse and presents Germany as black as possible—above all religious persecution and concentration camps are exploited—this propaganda is nevertheless extremely effective, since the public here is completely ignorant and knows nothing of the situation in Europe. …

The prevalent hatred against everything which is in any way connected with German Nazism is further kindled by the brutal policy against the Jews in Germany and by the émigré problem. In this action, various Jewish intellectuals participated: for instance, Bernard Baruch; the Governor of New York State, Lehman; the newly appointed judge of the Supreme Court, Felix Frankfurter; Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau; and others who are personal friends of President Roosevelt. They want the President to become the champion of human rights, freedom of religion and speech, and the man who in the future will punish trouble-makers. These groups of people, who occupy the highest positions in the American government and want to pose as representatives of ‘true Americanism’ and ‘defenders of democracy,’ are, in the last analysis, connected by unbreakable ties with international Jewry.

For this Jewish international, which above all is concerned with the interests of its race, to portray the President of the United States as the ‘idealist’ champion on human rights was a very clever move. In this manner they have created a dangerous hotbed for hatred and hostility in this hemisphere, and divided the world into two hostile camps. The entire issue is worked out in a masterly manner. Roosevelt has been given the foundation for activating American foreign policy, and simultaneously has been procuring enormous military stocks for the coming war, for which the Jews are striving very consciously.[36]

If Potocki were correct, it would mean that war had effectively been decided upon by the Allied powers. And in fact, that’s exactly what Bullitt said to American journalist Karl von Wiegand: “War in Europe has been decided upon. Poland had an assurance of the support of Britain and France, and would yield to no demands from Germany. America would be in the war after Britain and France entered it.”[37] Bullitt obviously had inside access to a well-developed plan, one that was proceeding apace.

In July, Potocki was back in Warsaw, speaking with a foreign ministry undersecretary named Jan Szembek. In his diary, Szembek recorded Potocki as stating the following: “In the West, there are all kinds of elements openly pushing for war: Jews, big capitalists, arms dealers. Now they are all ready for some excellent business… They want to do business at our expense. They are indifferent to the destruction of our country.”[38] This is notable, if only as confirmation of the legitimacy of the earlier reports.

Around that same time, the American ambassador to Great Britain began to cause a stir. He was a member of the Boston-area Irish Catholic set, a successful businessman…and father of a future president. Joseph Kennedy contributed to Roosevelt’s 1932 presidential campaign, and was rewarded with the chairmanship of the SEC. He left that office in 1935, and was appointed ambassador to the UK in January 1938.

Photo of Joseph Kennedy in New York, 1 November 1940. At the time, Kennedy was the United States Ambassador to Great Britain.
By Photographer: Larry Gordon [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Photo of Joseph Kennedy in New York, 1 November 1940. At the time, Kennedy was the United States Ambassador to Great Britain.
By Photographer: Larry Gordon [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
By mid-1939, Kennedy evidently began to have concerns about the Jewish role in the push toward war—and he began to speak openly to his colleagues in London. Somehow word of this got out to a local periodical, The Week, which found its way over the ocean to Washington D.C. and into the hands of the Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes. Convening with the president in early July, Ickes raised his concern: “This [story] was to the effect that Kennedy was privately telling his English friends in the Cliveden set that the Jews were running the United States and that the President would fall in 1940. It also charged that ‘[Kennedy believes] that the democratic policy of the United States is a Jewish production’.”[39]

Amazingly, the president was unfazed. “It is true,” he said. Ickes provides no further information on the incident, and thus it is hard to know how to take this blunt response. Was FDR joking? A half-joke? An outright, straight-faced admission? We simply do not know. What was undoubtedly true, though, was that Kennedy had deep concerns about Jewish influence.

He was not the only diplomat with such worries. A month later, reports Taylor (1961: 267), British ambassador to Germany Nevile Henderson told Hitler that “the hostile attitude in Great Britain was the work of Jews and enemies of the Nazis.” Here again we see a parallel action on both sides of the Atlantic, and possibly coordinated. This would be consistent with Baruch’s role as a “prominent confidant” of both Roosevelt and Churchill.

A few weeks later, on September 2, the German army crossed into Poland. What began as part of a long-standing border conflict between two neighboring countries became, two days later, a European war, when England and France declared war on Germany.[40]

England Stands Alone
On September 3, Roosevelt broadcast another of his many fireside chats to the American public. It contained the usual combination of exaggeration, propaganda, and misrepresentation. “When peace has been broken anywhere,” he said, “the peace of all countries everywhere is in danger.” Even one who strives for neutrality “cannot be asked to close his mind or his conscience.” His ending was again cloaked in the hypocritical language of peace:

I hate war. I say that again and again. I hope the United States will keep out of this war. I believe that it will. And I give you assurance and reassurance that every effort of your government will be directed toward that end. As long as it remains within my power to prevent, there will be no black-out of peace in the United States.

Here Roosevelt clearly reveals himself as a dissembler and a liar. Qualifications, conditionals, half-truths—all evidently designed to manipulate public opinion in favor of war. Jews inside and outside his administration had been pressing for intervention for years; now with actual combat underway, the pressure would rapidly escalate. Roosevelt knew this, but said nothing. After all, he was facing another election the following year, and had to publicly maintain an anti-war stance or risk losing to the Republicans. But he also had to keep his Jewish financiers happy. The fact that the vast majority of the American people were still strongly against the war apparently had no effect upon him—so much for democracy.

Kennedy could see what was happening. He strongly opposed American entry into the war, both on principle and because he had three sons who would likely be drawn in—and indeed, his eldest son, Joe Jr., would be killed during a bombing run in 1944. Speaking to his colleague Jay Moffat, Kennedy said, “Churchill…wants us there as soon as he can get us there. He is ruthless and scheming”[41]—unsurprising, given that the Brits found themselves in a war that they were ill-prepared to fight. But Churchill knew whom to go to: “He is also in touch with groups in America which have the same idea, notably, certain strong Jewish leaders.”

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Not that this was a secret. In a December 1939 memo to the British cabinet, Churchill recalled the vital role played by the Jews back in World War One—to draw in the Americans, against their wishes, against their desires, and against their national interests. “It was not for light or sentimental reasons,” wrote Churchill, that Balfour issued his famous promise of Palestine to the Zionists. “The influence of American Jewry was rated then as a factor of the highest importance…” “Now,” he added, “I should have thought it was more necessary, even than in November 1917, to conciliate American Jewry and enlist their aid in combating isolationist and indeed anti-British tendencies in the United States.”[42]

Here we have an amazingly bald-faced admission. Churchill has utter contempt for the “tendencies” (read: democratic principles) of the Americans. His sole concern is to leverage Jewish power to draw a neutral nation into yet another major war, to save his skin and to aid his Zionist friends.[43] Kennedy was naturally appalled—both that Churchill would do such a thing, and that it seemed to be working. “I don’t trust him,” he wrote in his diary; “He always impressed me that he was willing to blow up the American Embassy and say it was the Germans if it would get the United States in.”[44] No doubt that was true—just as FDR would be willing to sacrifice some 2,400 American lives at Pearl Harbor for precisely that end.

Into 1940, Hitler ran off an impressive string of victories, culminating in the capture of Paris in June. Chamberlain resigned as prime minister, to be replaced by Churchill, who immediately initiated the ‘bases for destroyers’ plan with the US (see above).

As the year wore on, Roosevelt continued to lie to the American public. His campaign address in Boston on October 30 contained the same deceptive falsehoods of his earlier speeches. “Your government has acquired new naval and air bases in British territory in the Atlantic Ocean”—but no mention of the extralegal 50 destroyers that he gave them in return. He boasted of doubling the size of the army within the past year, and of letting out $8 billion in defense contracts. But not to worry, fellow Americans—“I give you one more assurance. I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.” An utter lie, and he knew it.

One is perhaps tempted to make excuses for FDR: that he was morally torn, that he could see a larger danger that the public could not see, that he had to lie to us ‘for our own good.’ None of these withstands scrutiny. The ethics of warfare are fairly well established, at least for nominal democracies. They would include, at a minimum: proportionality, mutuality, direct threat, and public support. That is, (a) any aggressions should be responded to only with equivalent force, (b) rules for one party hold for all, (c) force is justified only in the face of a direct and imminent threat, and (d) the public must be given an honest appraisal of the situation, and its wishes respected. Suffice it to say that none of these conditions would hold. One wonders: If the public had known of the ultimate cost—some 420,000 American deaths, and roughly $4.2 trillion (present-day equivalent)—would they have embraced war, even after Pearl Harbor? Or would they perhaps have put FDR and his Jewish supporters on trial, for fraud, treason, and war crimes?

By October, Joe Kennedy had enough; he resigned his post. But he continued to comment on the role of the Jews, both to friends and in his private writings. On December 15, for example, he made this diary entry:

[Justice Frankfurter] is supposed directly and indirectly to influence Roosevelt on foreign policy over [Secretary of State] Hull’s and [Undersecretary of State] Welles’s heads, [and] whose cohort of young lawyers are in practically every government department, all aiding the cause of Jewish refugees getting into America… It looks to me as if the English sympathizers were tying their cause in with the Jews because they figure they’ve got all the influence in US. (cited in Nasaw 2012: 507)

Jewish population in the US, incidentally, was soon to reach 5 million. Frankfurter’s boys were doing a good job.

As before, Kennedy was not alone in his concern. Another Supreme Court Justice, Frank Murphy, confided to him that “it was Frankfurter and Ben Cohen who wrote the Attorney General’s opinion on destroyers and bases.” Kennedy added: “Murphy regards the Jewish influence as most dangerous. He said that after all, [Harry] Hopkins’s wife was a Jew; Hull’s wife is a Jew; and Frankfurter and Cohen and that group are all Jews.”[45]
 For his part, Welles privately referred to Frankfurter as “dangerous” and “a Jew chiseler.”

One of the most revealing remarks by Kennedy comes from the diary of James Forrestal, who at the time was Secretary of the Navy. In the entry from 27 December 1945, we read this:

Played golf today with Joe Kennedy…. He said Chamberlain’s position in 1938 was that England had nothing with which to fight, and that she could not risk going to war with Hitler. Kennedy’s view: That Hitler would have fought Russia without any later conflict with England, if it had not been for Bullitt’s urging on Roosevelt in the summer of 1939 that the Germans must be faced down about Poland; neither the French nor the British would have made Poland a cause of war, if it had not been for the constant needling from Washington…. Chamberlain, he says, stated that America and the world Jews had forced England into the war. (Forrestal 1951: 121-122)

So, we must ask: Why was the partly Jewish Bullitt—a mere diplomat—“urging” the president of the United States to face down Hitler? And why were Bullitt and Roosevelt “constantly needling” England and France to fight a war that they themselves did not see as necessary or winnable? And why did these nations succumb to American pressure? And why did Chamberlain ultimately link together America and “the world Jews” as the driving force for war? We need not look very hard to see a Jewish hand at work.

Media Blitz
Jewish-run media was becoming very active by this time. The newspapers, for example, had found much disagreement with Washington on domestic issues, but “Roosevelt’s standing with the press on foreign policy matters was much stronger,” according to Cole (1983: 478). Apart from the Chicago Tribune and the Hearst papers, most dailies backed intervention. Unsurprisingly, “the more prestigious and influential news publications strongly supported the president.” These included the New York Times, the New York Herald Tribune, the Chicago Daily News, and Time Magazine.

The motion picture industry certainly did its part to get America into war. Given that it took at least a year to get a motion picture from conception to theater, and that efforts to produce pro-war films did not start in earnest until 1937, it was well into 1939 before they began to appear. Early efforts like Confessions of a Nazi Spy and Beasts of Berlin came out that year, and set the stage for a flood of films over the next three years. In 1940, Hollywood released graphic and high-impact films like Escape and Mortal Storm; Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent came out that year, as did Chaplin’s The Great Dictator. In May, two major studio heads, Jack and Harry Warner—more accurately known as Itzhak and Hirsz Wonskolaser—wrote to Roosevelt, assuring him that they would “do all in our power within the motion picture industry…to show the American people the worthiness of the cause for which the free peoples of Europe are making such tremendous sacrifices.”[46] It’s nice to see such unselfish, high-minded public service amongst corporate executives.

By early 1941, Jewish filmmakers and producers were working subtle, pro-war themes into many of their films. The anti-war group America First argued that belligerent propaganda was becoming widespread; “films that have nothing to do with the European war are now loaded with lies and ideas which bring about an interventionist reaction” (in Cole: 474). In August of that year—just one month before Pearl Harbor—Senator Gerald Nye (R-N. Dak.) delivered a stinging radio address, arguing that the Hollywood studios “had become the most gigantic engines of propaganda in existence, to rouse the war fever in America and plunge this nation to her destruction” (in ibid: 475). By that time, nearly three dozen major pro-war films had been released.[47]

In the end, more than 60 explicitly ‘patriotic,’ pro-war films were produced, along with dozens of ordinary films that incorporated subtle pro-war messages. There were a few classics—Casablanca, Sergeant York, To Be or Not to Be—and many duds. Hitler’s Children and Nazi Agent, for example, won’t be making any Top 10 lists.

In March of 1941, under pressure from the Jewish lobby, Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act; this allowed shipment of armaments and military supplies to Britain and the other Allied nations. The vote was 260-165 in the House, and 59-30 in the Senate. Public opinion was narrowly in favor of the Act, but only as a defensive measure; a strong majority still wished to stay out of the war. FDR could arm the Allies but not join the fighting.

Roosevelt made a major radio address in May, declaring an “unlimited national emergency.” It was filled with more war hyperbole, most notably regarding the Germans’ alleged striving toward “world domination.” Over and over came the words: “Nazi book of world conquest”; “Hitler’s plan of world domination”; “a Hitler-dominated world.” Suffice to say that no evidence of such a plan has ever come forth.[48] Deploying the most facile, us-or-them language, FDR struggled to persuade reluctant Americans that they should fight and die: “Today the whole world is divided between human slavery and human freedom—between pagan brutality and Christian ideal.” He even hinted at the essentials of his strategy, namely, to provoke an ‘incident’ that would allow him to declare war: “We are placing our armed forces in strategic military position. We will not hesitate to use our armed forces to repel attack.”

In June, convinced of the Bolshevist threat posed by Stalin, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. In August, the US placed military forces in Iceland, effectively occupying that country. And on 11 September 1941—60 years to the day before that other 9/11—Charles Lindbergh gave his most famous speech, at Des Moines, Iowa. There he called out for the first time the three main groups that were driving the US toward war: the British, the Roosevelt administration, and the Jews. Of this latter group, Lindbergh acknowledged their plight under the Nazis, and their hatred of Hitler. But instead of inciting America to war, they should be working to halt it; “for they will be among the first to feel its consequences”—presumably meaning both in Germany and in the US, where anti-Semitism would surely be inflamed. In one of the more notable lines of the speech, he said that “[The Jews’] greatest danger in this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government.” Lindbergh thus ran afoul of the first rule of wartime: Thou shalt never speak the truth.

Indeed: If Jewish influence in “our government” was part of the danger, then naming the “Roosevelt administration” was redundant. The true danger was Jews in media, Jews in Hollywood, and Jews in the government—along with those non-Jews who worked on their behalf. And even to name the British—Churchill and his Zionist backers—was, in effect, to name yet more Jews. On all fronts, it was powerful and influential Jews driving peaceful people toward war, simply to destroy the hated Nazi regime.

British Zionist and future President of Israel, Chaim Weizmann vowed Jewish support for the Second World War. Photo: 26 March 1949
By http://www.flickr.com/people/69061470@N05 [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
British Zionist and future President of Israel, Chaim Weizmann vowed Jewish support for the Second World War. Photo: 26 March 1949
By http://www.flickr.com/people/69061470@N05 [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
There is no doubt that Lindbergh was right—that British Jews were pushing the US toward war, and that they were succeeding. In a strange coincidence, just one day before Lindbergh’s Des Moines speech, leading British Zionist Chaim Weizmann delivered this notorious letter to Churchill:

There is only one big ethnic group [in America] which is willing to stand, to a man, for Great Britain, and a policy of “all-out aid” for her: the five million Jews. From Secretary Morgenthau, Governor Lehman, Justice Frankfurter, down to the simplest Jewish workman or trader, they are conscious of all that this struggle against Hitler implies.

It has been repeatedly acknowledged by British Statesmen that it was the Jews who, in the last war, effectively helped to tip the scales in America in favour of Great Britain. They are keen to do it—and may do it—again. (cited in Irving 2001: 77)

A most explicit admission: American Jews, working in conjunction with British Jews, hold the key to war. They are “keen to do it.” Virtually upon command, they can “tip the scales”—again—and drive the Americans into another war that they desperately want to avoid.

The Pearl Harbor “Incident”
With American opposition to war still hovering near 80%, FDR and his Jewish team were evidently becoming desperate. Dramatic action was increasingly necessary. At that point, only a direct attack on American soil could alter public opinion. For a good two years, Roosevelt had been harassing the Germans. But they refused to bite. What to do?

History is full of “false flag” operations in which governments or other actors conduct a fake attack, blame the enemy, and then use the event as a pretext for military action. By some accounts, the earliest was in 47 BC, when Julius Caesar arranged and paid for insurgent ‘rebel’ actions in Rome prior to his taking of the city. A more recent instance occurred in 1846, when President James Polk sent an army detachment into a disputed area along the Texas-Mexico border. When the Mexicans responded, he declared it an attack on “American soil,” and promptly began the US-Mexico War. For centuries, military commanders have understood the benefits of false flags; Roosevelt’s team was no different.

Though I cannot elaborate here, there is ample evidence that the Pearl Harbor attack was effectively a false flag event. While obviously not directly conducting the attack, Roosevelt did everything possible to encourage and allow the Japanese to strike—and then to feign shock when it actually happened. Below are the key elements of that story.[49]

The earliest explicit indication that some such plan was in the works comes from October 1940, in the so-called McCollum Memorandum. Lt. Commander Arthur McCollum was director of the Office of Naval Intelligence’s Far East Asia section when he issued a five-page letter to two of his superiors. The memo describes a situation in which a neutral US is surrounded by hostile nations across two oceans, and notes that “Germany and Italy have lately concluded a military alliance with Japan directed against the United States.” This was a mutual-defense pact, such that an attack against Japan would be considered by Germany to be an act of war. This gave FDR two paths to war: attack by Germany, or attack by Japan. Germany was scrupulously eschewing conflict, but perhaps Japan could be engaged.

This was evidently well understood within the military establishment. As McCollum explained, “It is not believed that in the present state of political opinion, the US government is capable of declaring war against Japan without more ado; and it is barely possible that vigorous action on our part might lead the Japanese to modify their attitude”—clever language that essentially means: Japan does not really want war either, but perhaps we could provoke them enough (“more ado”) that they would launch a first strike (“modify their attitude”). McCollum then suggested an eight-point action plan, anticipating conflict with Japan. Item Six includes this: “Keep the main strength of the US fleet now in the Pacific in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands.” The memo concludes with this striking sentence: “If by these means Japan could be led to commit an overt act of war, so much the better.” The plan could hardly be clearer.

On 19 August 1941, Churchill told his war cabinet that FDR was doing all he could to provoke an attack by the Axis powers—information which came to light only in 1972. Churchill said:

[Roosevelt] was obviously determined that they [the US] should come in. … The president said to me that he would wage war but not declare it, and that he would become more and more provocative. If the Germans did not like it, they could attack American forces. … Everything was being done to force an ‘incident.’ The president has made it clear that he would look for an ‘incident’ which could justify him in opening hostilities.[50]

Further comment is unnecessary.

Lindbergh essentially understood what was going on. In his September 1941 speech, he laid out FDR’s three-part plan: (1) prepare for war in the guise of defense, (2) incrementally involve the US in conflict situations, and (3) “create a series of incidents which would force us into actual conflict.” Near the end of his speech he added that “The war groups have succeeded in the first two of their three major steps into war. … Only the creation of sufficient ‘incidents’ yet remains.” An amazing prognosis, given that the Pearl Harbor attack was just three months away.

On 25 November 1941, 12 days before the attack, Roosevelt held a War Cabinet meeting at the White House. Secretary of War Henry Stimson wrote the following in his diary of that day:

[Roosevelt] brought up the event that we were likely to be attacked perhaps next Monday [December 1], for the Japanese are notorious for making an attack without warning, and the question was how we should maneuver them into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves. It was a difficult proposition.[51]

This is Stimson’s infamous “maneuver” remark; once again, it is clear and explicit.

The following day, November 26, Secretary of State Hull presented a letter to the Japanese ambassador, demanding that they withdraw from China and French Indochina (section II, point #3). Though couched in the language of peace, it was effectively an ultimatum, and it was thusly perceived by the Japanese prime minister.

On December 4, the anti-war paper Chicago Daily Tribune ran a huge headline: “FDR’s War Plans!” It detailed a plan for a 10-million-man military force, half of whom would be dedicated to fighting Germany. It even mentioned a specific date—1 July 1943—as the day for the “final supreme effort by American land forces to defeat the mighty German army in Europe.” This was incredibly accurate; the Allied invasion of Sicily, the first direct assault on European territory, occurred on 9 July 1943. Clearly FDR’s secrets were quickly unraveling.

At 4:00 pm on Saturday, December 6, a decoded Japanese communiqué was delivered to Roosevelt. It indicated that Japan was not going to accept any portion of America’s ultimatum, and that they were compelled to respond to its on-going belligerence. “This means war,” said the president. If war was inevitable, said Harry Hopkins, it was too bad that we couldn’t strike first. “No, we can’t do that,” said Roosevelt, hypocritically; “We are a democracy of a peaceful people. We have a good record. We must stand on it.”[52] Pearl Harbor was not explicitly mentioned, but the president took no action to forewarn any of his commanders in the Pacific theater, thus rendering them defenseless before the oncoming assault.

Eight years after the attack, the president’s administrative assistant, Jonathan Daniels, recalled events of that time. “There was a mass of warning before Pearl Harbor,” he wrote (1949: 490). “As a matter of fact, warning had been clear for many months before Pearl Harbor. The increasing menace had been understood and accepted. Of course, even Senators can now read to precise clarity—to the place and the hour—the warnings we possessed.” At the time, though, Roosevelt was surprised: “Of course, he was surprised. But he had deliberately taken the chance of surprise, as he had won the strategy of successful militant delay. The blow was heavier than he had hoped it would necessarily be.” Indeed—2,400 Americans killed in one day.

Or perhaps it was no “surprise” at all. In 1989, a 90-year-old British naval intelligence officer named Eric Nave came forth with a stunning assertion: that the Brits had detailed foreknowledge of the attack, days before the event. As reported in the Times of London (June 1), Nave’s decoding of Japanese battle commands made “clear their intention to attack several days before the raid took place.” “His revelations challenge the view that the Americans were taken by surprise, and support evidence that Churchill, and probably Roosevelt, allowed the attack to go ahead unchallenged as means to bring America into the Second World War.” Nave added this: “We never had any doubt about Pearl Harbor itself. It should never have happened. We knew days, even a week before.” His account is detailed in his book Betrayal at Pearl Harbor (1991). Nave died in 1993.

On 19 August 1941, Churchill told his war cabinet that Roosevelt was doing all he could to provoke an attack by the Axis powers. Photo: August 1941.
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
On 19 August 1941, Churchill told his war cabinet that Roosevelt was doing all he could to provoke an attack by the Axis powers. Photo: August 1941.
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Some Concluding Thoughts
This essay has been a study in history. But we must never forget: History is suffused with lessons for the present. What, then, can we conclude from this long and tragic story?

First: Wars are complex events, and all complex events have multiple causes. They are generally the result of an accumulation of tensions and conflicts over several years. It would be all but impossible for any one group, no matter how influential, to precipitate war if the conditions were not already favorable. But a small group can certainly heighten existing tensions, or serve as a trigger, or exacerbate an ongoing conflict.

It would be misleading to say that Jews “caused” World War I, or the Russian Revolution, or World War II—though they certainly had a significant influence on all these events, and arguably a decisive influence. Clearly they are not the sole cause of the wars under review. It is not as if, were there no Jews at all, fighting in Europe would never have occurred. There were, for example, many non-Jewish belligerents on all sides during World War II, including Lord Halifax in England, and Stimson among the Americans. Military men always have an inclination to fight; after all, their very positions and prestige depend upon it.

Counterfactuals are notoriously difficult to apply to historical events: What if Jewish rebels and Weimar reconstructionists had not dominated post-World War I Germany? What if Roosevelt had not relied upon Jewish money to finance his campaigns? What if Churchill had not been a Zionist? What if Ben Cohen’s “bases-for-destroyers” plan had failed? We obviously can never know these things; but it is clear that Jews were active and instrumental at several critical junctures on the path to war. And indeed, this is one of the most striking facts: that Jews were so active, at so many points along the way, that we can scarcely avoid attributing to them a significant portion of blame for the world wars and accompanying revolutions.

Second: FDR comes off, rather like Wilson, as an amoral, opportunistic, war-mongering dupe. His own Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, wrote that “his mind does not follow easily a consecutive chain of thought, but he is full of stories and incidents, and hops about in his discussions from suggestion to suggestion, and it is very much like chasing a vagrant beam of sunshine around a vacant room.”[53] Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously declared him “a second-class intellect” in 1933. His close advisor Frankfurter once wrote, “I know his limitations. Most of them derive, I believe, from a lack of incisive intellect…”[54]
British ambassador to the US Sir Ronald Lindsay considered FDR “an amiable and impressionable lightweight,” one who could not keep a secret from the American press.[55] Even his wife Eleanor did not know “whether FDR had a hidden center to his personality or only shifting peripheries.”[56]

His lies were persistent, malicious, and criminal. His more knowledgeable opponents could see through them, even if the public could not. Lindbergh certainly knew the truth, and was appalled at the ability of our executive-in-chief to baldly lie to the people. In late 1944, with hostilities nearing an end, Congresswoman Clare Boothe Luce (R-Con.) loudly and publicly declared that Roosevelt “lied us into war.”[57] “The shame of Pearl Harbor,” she added, “was Mr. Roosevelt’s shame.”

Thus we see something of a long-term trend: Unethical, unprincipled, deceptive American presidents, who are “swayed by their Jewish elements” (Dillon), to lead an unwilling nation into battle against sovereign countries that are deemed to be enemies of the Jews. The parallels to the past 25 years are striking.

Sources
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Notes
[1] As Baruch stated to Congress, “I probably had more power than perhaps any other man did in the war; doubtless that is true.” See Part 1 for his full testimony.

[2] Cited in Chalberg (1995: 71-73).

[3] The New York Times carried periodic such reports. See, for example: 26 January 1891 (“Rabbi Gottheil says a word on the persecution of the Jews…about six millions persecuted and miserable wretches”), 21 September 1891 (“An indictment of Russia…a total of 6,000,000 is more nearly correct.”), 11 June 1900 (“[In Russia and central Europe] there are 6,000,000 living, bleeding, suffering arguments in favor of Zionism.”), 23 March 1905 (“We Jews in America [sympathize with] our 6,000,000 cringing brothers in Russia”), 25 March 1906 (“Startling reports of the condition and future of Russia’s 6,000,000 Jews…”). The situation led a former president of B’nai B’rith to a prophetic exclamation: “Simon Wolf asks how long the Russian Holocaust is to continue” (10 November 1905). History does indeed repeat itself.

[4] It seems that he had good reason for this enmity. According to Cecil (1996: 57), Wilhelm “believed that Jews were perversely responsible…for encouraging opposition to his rule.” In a letter to a friend, the Kaiser wrote: “The Hebrew race are my most inveterate enemies at home and abroad; they remain what they are and always were: the forgers of lies and the masterminds governing unrest, revolution, upheaval by spreading infamy with the help of their poisoned, caustic, satyric spirit” (in Rohl 1994: 210). Townley (1922: 45) relates this comment of his: “The Jews are the curse of my country. They keep my people poor and in their clutches. In every small village in Germany sits a dirty Jew, like a spider drawing the people into the web of usury. He lends money to the small farmers on the security of their land, and so gradually acquires control of everything. The Jews are the parasites of my Empire.” He adds that the Jewish question is one of his “great problems,” but one in which “nothing can be done to cope with it.” In 1940, with Hitler moving to clean up Europe, he said this: “The Jews are being thrust out of the nefarious positions in all countries, whom they have driven to hostility for centuries” (in Rohl: 211).

[5] Wentling (2012: 6).

[6] A good, brief account is given in MacMillan (2003: 463-466).

[7] Cited in MacMillan (2003: 414-415).

[8] Muller adds, “The prominence of Jews in the Hungarian Soviet Republic is all the more striking when one considers that the Jews of Hungary were richer than their coreligionists in Eastern Europe… Though only 5% of the population, on the eve of WWI, Jews made up almost half the doctors, lawyers, and journalists in Hungary.” But this is precisely as I have said: no amount of wealth or social status is sufficient, if Jews lack political power.

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[9] Until his assassination in June 1922.

[10] For one account, see Darkmoon (2013). Also see Bryant (1940: 142-145).

[11] In my notation, (I.5) refers to Volume I, chapter 5. I use the Murphy translation.

[12] See Part I for an elaboration.

[13] Ford’s so-called “Peace Ship” sailed to Norway in December of 1915, in a failed attempt to negotiate an end to the war.

[14] Cited in Shogan (2010: 51).

[15] Cited in Ward (1989: 253). See also Morgenthau (1991: 169 facer).

[16] Various other extremist writings have also claimed that the Delano family (Franklin’s mother’s side) were Jews. They construct a parallel account to the Rossacampo story, and of dispersion from Spain or Italy. But I find no evidence to verify this claim.

[17] This recalls the similar characterization of Baruch during World WarI.

[18] See Leutze (1975: 469-470).

[19] The first Jewish cabinet member, as we recall, was Oscar Straus, selected by Franklin’s cousin Theodore back in 1906.

[20] See Makovsky (2007: 216).

[21] Bullitt’s heritage is somewhat cryptic. His mother, Louisa Horowitz, was apparently at least half-Jewish. Her father, Orville Horowitz, descended from the Salomon family, who were distinctly Jewish. Her mother, Maria Gross, likely had a mixed Jewish heritage. But there is no doubt where his sympathies lay; “Bullitt [is] a friend of ours,” wrote Weizmann in 1938 (cited in Nasaw 2012: 358).

[22] Though scandalous at the time, such level of Jewish influence is commonplace today—with three of nine Supreme Court Justices being Jewish (Kagan, Breyer, Ginsburg), numerous Cabinet-level appointments, and countless subordinate positions. Over just the past three presidential administrations, Jewish and part-Jewish Cabinet-level office holders include, at a minimum, the following: M. Albright, L. Aspin, C. Barshefsky, S. Bodman, J. Bolten, A. Card, M. Chertoff, W. Cohen, R. Emanuel, M. Froman, J. Furman, T. Geithner, D. Glickman, M. Kantor, J. Kerry, A. Krueger, J. Lew, M. Markowitz, M. Mukasey, P. Orszag, P. Pritzker, R. Portman, R. Reich, R. Rubin, S. Schwab, M. Spellings, J. Stiglitz, L. Summers, J. Yellen, and R. Zoellick. This list does not include others, such as Samantha Power, who have a Jewish spouse (Cass Sunstein). Nor does it include Chairmen of the Federal Reserve—a very powerful office, held by Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan during the past several years, and currently by Janet Yellen.

[23] Both citations from Chalberg (1995: 192-193).

[24] Public Opinion Quarterly, 4(4), December 1940: 714.

[25] Public Opinion Quarterly, 5(4), Winter 1941: 680.

[26] Public Opinion Quarterly, 2(3), July 1938: 388.

[27] By late 1936, the “600,000” had evolved into “6 million.” In the New York Times (Nov. 26) we read this: “Dr. Weizmann dwelt first on the tragedy of at least 6,000,000 ‘superfluous’ Jews in Poland, Germany, and Austria…” It was even more explicit by early 1938: “Persecuted Jews Seen on Increase…6,000,000 Victims Noted” (Jan. 9)—this, a full four years before the alleged “death camps” even began operation.

[28] Cited in Herzstein (1989: 33).

[29] The New York Times had long been under Jewish control. The Post was purchased by Eugene Meyer in 1933.

[30] See Dalton (2010) for an elaboration of Goebbels’s views.

[31] Testimony of February 1941. Cited in Doenecke (2000: 440). See also Fuller (1957, vol. 3: 369).

[32] Cited in Weber (1983). This and other reports by Potocki were acquired by the Germans upon capture of Warsaw, and thus there is some skepticism about their authenticity. Weber makes a good case that they are genuine. David Irving reports that he saw copies of the original in the Hoover Library (http://www.fpp.co.uk/History/General/Potocki/papers.html).

[33] Cited in Cole (1983: 308).

[34] Cited in Fuller (1957: 370).

[35] Traditional references to Kristallnacht often overlook the fact that the event was triggered by a Jewish youth, Herschel Grynszpan, who murdered German Diplomat Ernst vom Rath in Paris on November 9. Kristallnachtfollowed the next day.

[36] See Weber (1983) and Fuller (1957: 372-374).

[37] Cited in Fuller (1957: 375).

[38] See Szembek (1952: 476), published in French. The first sentence reads as follows: “En Occident, il y a toutes sortes d’elements qui poussent nettement a la guerre: les Juifs, les grands capitalists, les marchands de canons.”

[39] As recorded by Ickes in his personal diary, for July 2. See Ickes (1954: 676).

[40] Obviously there is more detail to the outbreak of war than I can provide here. In brief, once Poland received a guarantee of military support from England in March of 1939, they became increasingly belligerent toward German minorities on Polish soil, particularly in Danzig. It seems bizarre in hindsight, but many of the Poles (Potocki excepted), with the Brits at their back, were virtually spoiling for a fight with Germany. They believed that a victory would solidify their national standing, and help to ward off the Soviet threat to the east. Instead, they succumbed to the German assault in just four weeks.

[41] Cited in Nasaw (2012: 429).

[42] Cited in Cohen (2003: 195).

[43] Churchill himself was a Zionist—a fact that he openly admitted. In a letter of 1942 to Roosevelt, Churchill said, “I am strongly wedded to the Zionist policy [in the UK], of which I was one of the authors” (in Loewenheim 1975: 234). Speaking in 1950 on behalf of the creation of Israel, he said that it was “a great event in the history of mankind,” and that he was “proud of his own contribution towards it.” He added that “he had been a Zionist all his life” (in Cohen 2003: 322).

[44] Cited in Doenecke (2000: 198).

[45] Cited in ibid.

[46] Cited in Dunn (2013: 48).

[47] Including Beasts of Berlin, Espionage Agent, Arise My Love, British Intelligence, Escape to Glory, Murder in the Air, Waterloo Bridge, All Through the Night, Confirm or Deny, International Squadron, Joan of Paris, Man at Large, Man Hunt, One Night in Lisbon, Paris Calling, So Ends Our Night, Sundown, Underground, and World Premiere.

[48] Buchanan (2008: 334-340) gives a succinct argument that Hitler had a hard enough time taking even Great Britain, let alone America or “the world.”

[49] For a full account, see Stinnett’s book Day of Deceit (2001).

[50] Chicago Tribune (2 January 1972; p. A22). See also New York Times (1 January 1972; p. 7).

[51] Cited in Jackson (2003: 247). See also Morgenstern (1947: 292).

[52] See New York Times (16 February 1946; p. 1).

[53] Cited in Shogan (2010: 33).

[54] In ibid: 96.

[55] In the words of Dallek (1979: 31).

[56] According to Breitman and Lichtman (2013: 6).

[57] Quoted in the New York Times (14 October 1944, p. 9)

(Republished from Inconvenient History by permission of author or representative)