You write: “On the contrary, Rezun has repeatedly shown himself to [be] an unreliable prevaricator. Whether it deals with claims about “24,000 tanks” or “a million paratroopers” he is repeatedly caught twisting the facts.”

My response: As we have previously discussed, Suvorov correctly states that Pravda on August 18, 1940, said there were a million trained parachutists in the USSR. Whatever the actual number of Soviet parachutists was at the time is certainly subject to question.

Regarding the tanks, the Red Army lost 20,500 tanks between June and November 1941, amounting to 80% of its armored strength. (Source: McMeekin, Sean, Stalin’s War: A New History of World War II, New York: Basic Books, 2021, p. 381). If the Red Army lost 2o,5oo tanks in the first five months of the war, the 24,000 tanks estimate is probably not too far off of the actual number of Soviet tanks.

You write: “There’s no real cause for surprise at the fact that the early offensives in Barbarossa penetrated deeply. This could have been better prepared by the Soviet army to achieve less costly retreats. But no special explanation is required for the initial German advance.”

My response: The extreme success of the German army at the start of Barbarossa was caused largely because the Red Army was not positioned for defense. As previously discussed, Suvorov states in The Chief Culprit that both German and Soviet forces were positioned for attack on June 22, 1941. The position of the divisions of the Red Army and the German army on the border mirrored each other. The airfields of both armies were moved all the way up to the border. From the defensive point of view, this kind of deployment of troops and airfields by both armies was stupid and suicidal. Whichever army attacked first would be able to easily encircle the troops of the other army. Hitler attacked first to enable German troops to trap and encircle the best units of the Red Army. (Source: Suvorov, Viktor, The Chief Culprit: Stalin’s Grand Design to Start World War II, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2008, p. xx).

Also, as previously discussed, the Stalin Line had been disassembled prior to the German attack.

From 1926 to 1937, the Soviet Union constructed 13 fortified regions along its western borders known unofficially as “the Stalin Line.” There were many differences between the Soviet Stalin Line and the French Maginot Line. Unlike the French Maginot Line, the Stalin Line was built in secrecy and not publicized. The Stalin Line was much deeper and was built not only to stop infantry, but mostly to stop tanks. The Soviets also used huge quantities of steel and granite boulders in addition to concrete. The Stalin Line was built from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south and could not be bypassed. Finally, unlike the Maginot Line, the Stalin Line was not built at the very border, but further into Soviet territory. (Source: Ibid., pp. 171-172).

The 13 fortified regions on the Stalin Line were built for defense and came at a tremendous cost in effort and money. Each fortified region was also a military formation that could independently conduct military operations during a long period of time and in isolated conditions. In 1938 it was decided to strengthen all 13 regions by building heavy artillery installations within them. The Soviet Union also started construction of eight more fortified regions. Then, when the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact created a common border between Germany and the Soviet Union, Stalin ordered further construction of the fortified regions to stop. The existing fortified regions were disarmed, and everything connected with defense was dismantled and destroyed. (Source: Ibid., pp. 171-173).

You write: “But a book written by defense lawyer seeking to vindicate their cause would only be of major interest if it was very sharply referenced with primary citations from the archival records.”

My response: As previously discussed, Paget would have no reason to lie about what Manstein said. The case had already been tried. Also, Paget was strongly anti-Nazi. He would not be inclined to make something up to make the Germans look good.

I write: “It makes you wonder why Britain and France only declared war against Germany and not also against the Soviet Union” and you respond: “No mystery there. Two things stand out.”

Your first thing states: “If the USSR had invaded Estonia in March 1939, then this might have affected things in September 1939. But the entry of Soviet troops into Poland was a first-time thing, whereas the German invasion of Poland was a follow-up to the earlier conquest of Czechia.”

My response: Polish Foreign Minister Józef Beck accepted an offer from Great Britain on March 30, 1939, that gave an unconditional unilateral guarantee of Poland’s independence. The British Empire agreed to go to war as an ally of Poland if the Poles decided that war was necessary. In words drafted by Halifax, Chamberlain spoke in the House of Commons on March 31, 1939, declaring that in the event of any action which clearly threatened Polish independence and which the Polish government accordingly considered it vital to resist with their national forces, his majesty’s government would feel themselves bound at once to lend the Polish government all support in their power. They have given the Polish government an assurance to that effect. (Source: Barnett, Correlli, The Collapse of British Power, New York: William Morrow, 1972, p. 560; see also Taylor, A.J.P., The Origins of the Second World War, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1961, p. 211).

This British unilateral guarantee of Poland’s independence should have applied to both Germany and the Soviet Union. However, Britain and France declared war on Germany because declaring war on Germany had been their intent all along and the reason they gave this “blank check” to Poland.

I write: “Hitler never wanted the Soviet Union to take over the three Baltic nations of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia” and you respond: “The original agreements of August-October 1939 had assigned these regions to a Soviet sphere. Obviously, Hitler didn’t want the USSR taking them over because he expected to conquer the whole region himself later on. After the fall of France, Stalin rushed to consolidate his hold on the Baltic and Bessarabia as he expected that Hitler would now be turning east.”

My response: This is nonsense. Hitler had never wanted to conquer Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia and the whole Baltic region for Germany. What is your documentation for this statement?

Also, Hitler never wanted to consolidate his hold on Bessarabia. If you think he did, what is your documentation for this statement?

Serbia was a small country and a Serb terrorist assassinated the Austrian heir to the throne and his wife. When Russia declared war on the Austro-Hungarian Empire, that made it a big war and it got bigger from there. France played a key role. They wanted the German speaking Alsace-Lorraine back. France and Great Britain escalated it to a world war. Each of those countries: Russia, Great Britain, France and the USA had a long history of bullying small countries. A world war only broke out when Austria-Hungary attacked Serbia.

LOL. The Schlieffen Plan was correct in stating that if Russia attacked, France would attack from the other side.

I would put your book next to the books on gas, soap and lampshades from WW II in the fiction section of a library.

Here is a picture of an American woman with a Japanese skull her sick soldier boyfriend sent her. The Americans did not take Japanese POW’s. They killed most Japanese captured. That was a huge war crime.

I think the Nuremberg Trials revealed the allies to be criminal liars. I believe the Germans are a more civilized people than the Americans, British, French and the Russians. The Americans and Soviets appear to be the biggest criminals.

I write: “The position of the divisions of the Red Army and the German army on the border mirrored each other” and you respond “That is false.”

My response: Have you ever considered the possibility that Viktor Suvorov had access to information that Richard Overy did not have? Have you considered the possibility that this is why the Germans did so well at the beginning of the war? I think Suvorov is correct in his analysis here.

You write about R. T. Paget’s book on Erich von Manstein: “That book is a defense lawyer’s write-up and lacks all citations. It should not be given any special significance.”

My response: So, do you think R. T. Paget is lying? The trial was already over. I see no reason why Paget would make up a story about what Manstein said. Also, Paget was extremely anti-Nazi. He had no reason to lie about what Manstein said.

I write about the Soviet Union: “took over the eastern part of Poland by military force, and you respond: “All part of the package agreement with Adolf Hitler.”

My response: I agree with you here. It makes you wonder why Britain and France only declared war against Germany and not also against the Soviet Union. In my opinion, Britain and France were only interested in a war against Germany, and hypocritically ignored the Soviet Union’s aggression against Poland.

You write: “The actions in eastern Europe would certainly fit the description as Soviet aggression. But these were quite specifically done in response to overtures from Hitler where the latter offered to negotiate spheres of influence (which he did not intend to respect over the long run).”

My response: Hitler never wanted the Soviet Union to take over the three Baltic nations of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia. Hitler also never wanted the Soviet Union to take over Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. These aggressive Soviet actions were all done without Hitler’s approval.

You write about Sean McMeekin: “When McMeekin suddenly speaks of “thousands of trained parachutists” (I would say “tens of thousands”) he is obviously withdrawing from the statement of “a million.” But it’s done in a slippery way which is intended to mislead gullible readers.”

My response: McMeekin is correct that Pravda on August 18, 1940, said there were a million trained parachutists in the USSR. Whatever the actual number of parachutists was is certainly subject to question.

You write: “btw: your #447; you thanked yourself under your own post [• Thanks: John Wear] You do realize that kind of behaviour is more than a little strange, No?”

My response: I meant to type this Thanks for Petermx’s outstanding comment #446. I accidentally typed it on comment #447 instead. If there is a way to delete this Thanks on comment #447, someone please let me know and I will delete it.

You write: “I ask a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ question, and you produce pages and pages of recycled verbiage that had nothing to do with the question.

My response: My comment #457 ends by stating: “The answer is that the Stalin Line was destroyed because Stalin was not planning to fight on his territory. Instead, Stalin was planning an offensive war against all of Europe. This is the primary reason why I agreed with Marcali’s comment #439.”

Sometimes explanations require more than a simple “Yes” or “No” statement.

You write: “You once complained about being faulted for spam. Now it’s OK.”

My response: I have never regarded any of my comments as spam. That is how you regard my comments.

You write: “Take your ‘Stalin’s paratroops were offensive’ theory (spammed in #226 and #406). In fact, Stalin dropped paratroops behind the extended German lines, a very effective defense.”

My response: The Soviet gliders and transport planes designed to drop paratroops behind German lines would be easy prey for enemy fighters if the Soviet Union did not secure complete air superiority. The Red Army had to begin the war with a massive air attack and invasion against the enemy’s air bases. Tens of thousands of paratroopers could then be dropped to seize and control key bases and strategic sites. Any other scenario was not viable. Instead, it was Hitler who carried out a preemptive strike, and Stalin’s strategy to strike the first blow was aborted. The Soviet Union’s carefully designed plan to mount a massive air offensive followed by an assault of airborne troops had to be abandoned in the desperate rush to fight a defensive war. (Source: Suvorov, Viktor, The Chief Culprit: Stalin’s Grand Design to Start World War II, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2008, pp. 77-78).

You write: “You complain of ‘lengthy comments’: by #455 you posted (pasted) 46,405-words on this thread, 23,200 responding to my 8,300: a ratio of 2.8 to 1. With 59 comments, your average is 787-words. Trolling, plain and simple.”

My response: I do not engage in trolling. My comments consist of relevant information. Also, I respond to you, Patrick McNally, Avery, and others on a regular basis.

I write: “I have documented in my book Germany’s War how I got my 9 million German deaths number” and you respond: “What else do you “document”: 1 x 2.6 = 9? How to turn gold into lead?”

My response: I am not sure why you make such a sarcastic comment. Chapters Five, Six, and Seven of my book Germany’s War document how I calculate the 9 million German deaths after World War II.

You write: “Your book is unpublishable, so why should any consider it a valid resource?”

My response: My book was published over 10 years ago and has sold reasonably well. Ron Unz paid me $1,500 to publish my book on his website.

You write: “Bacque is widely considered unreliable (Ambrose, Villa, Bischof, Strauß, Mausbach, Tent).”

My response: Establishment historians such as these men are hesitant to acknowledge the truth of the Allied mass murder of Germans after the war. That is why they say James Bacque is unreliable.

You write: “Rather than save his people, the Führer’s first and final instinct was their immolation in a shabby Wagnerian liebestod. ”

My response: Hitler’s first instinct was to negotiate peace with Allied leaders; he tried to negotiate peace on numerous occasions. Rather than negotiating peace, at the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, Roosevelt and Churchill demanded the unconditional surrender of German forces.

Maurice Hankey, an experienced British statesman, summed up the effects of the Allied unconditional surrender policy as follows:

“It embittered the war, rendered inevitable a fight to the finish, banged the door to the possibility of either side offering terms or opening up negotiations, gave the Germans and the Japanese the courage of despair, strengthened Hitler’s position as Germany’s “only hope,” aided Goebbels’s propaganda, and made inevitable the Normandy landing and the subsequent terribly exhausting and destructive advance through North France, Belgium, Luxemburg, Holland, and Germany. The lengthening of the war enabled Stalin to occupy the whole of Eastern Europe, to ring down the iron curtain and so to realize at one swoop a large installment of his avowed aims against so-called capitalism, in which he includes social democracy…Not only the enemy countries, but nearly all countries were bled white by this policy, which has left us all, except the United States of America, impoverished and in dire straits. Unfortunately, also, these policies, so contrary to the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount, did nothing to strengthen the moral position of the Allies.” (Source: Hankey, Maurice Pascal Alers, Politics, Trials and Errors, Chicago: Regnery, 1950, pp. 125-126).

You write: “All Europe suffered wide-spread food shortages 1945-47 caused by war damage (infrastructure and agriculture), compromised healthcare, massive displacement and weather. Conditions were mortal. But, sorry, hard as you try, the Allies had no ‘starvation policy’.”

My response: Actually, the Allies did have a starvation policy against the Germans. This is well documented in Chapters Five, Six, and Seven of my book Germany’s War.

You write: “If you want ‘starvation policy’ try German treatment of Soviet POWs (3.3 million dead)…”

My response: Many of the Soviet POWs starved to death because Stalin refused to cooperate with the ICRC. You can read the first section of Chapter Ten of my book Germany’s War for more details.

You write: “You wildly inflate numbers to transfer guilt from the losers to the victors. Nice try.”

My response: My estimate of German deaths are not wildly inflated. Please tell me what I have “wildly inflated” in Chapters Five, Six, and Seven of my book Germany’s War.

You write: “Here is my question: Your fellow panzer Marcali stated: {You can either deploy your forces defensively or offensively but not both ways.} To which you immediately Agreed. [• Agree: John Wear] #439. In view of my subsequent reply, #445, and Google AI summation showing the absurdity and illogic of Marcali’s statement, do you still Agree? Yes or No.”

My response: I agree with Marcali that the Soviet Union’s forces were employed offensively when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. The Soviets had largely removed their defensive barriers at the time of the German invasion.

For example, from 1926 to 1937, the Soviet Union constructed 13 fortified regions along its western borders known unofficially as “the Stalin Line.” There were many differences between the Soviet Stalin Line and the French Maginot Line. Unlike the French Maginot Line, the Stalin Line was built in secrecy and not publicized. The Stalin Line was much deeper and was built not only to stop infantry, but mostly to stop tanks. The Soviets also used huge quantities of steel and granite boulders in addition to concrete. The Stalin Line was built from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south and could not be bypassed. Finally, unlike the Maginot Line, the Stalin Line was not built at the very border, but further into Soviet territory. (Source: Suvorov, Viktor, The Chief Culprit: Stalin’s Grand Design to Start World War II, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2008, pp. 173-176).

The 13 fortified regions on the Stalin Line were built for defense and came at a tremendous cost in effort and money. Each fortified region was also a military formation that could independently conduct military operations during a long period of time and in isolated conditions. In 1938 it was decided to strengthen all 13 regions by building heavy artillery installations within them. The Soviet Union also started construction of eight more fortified regions. Then, when the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact created a common border between Germany and the Soviet Union, Stalin ordered further construction of the fortified regions to stop. The existing fortified regions were disarmed, and everything connected with defense was dismantled and destroyed. (Source: Ibid., pp. 171-173).

The construction of a new line of fortified regions began during the summer of 1940 on the new Soviet-German border. These new regions were unofficially referred to as the Molotov Line, but they were never finished. The defense buildup on the new borders proceeded very slowly, while the destruction of the Stalin Line was surprisingly fast. When Germany attacked the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, the Molotov Line was not yet built. Soviet generals and marshals after Stalin’s death expressed their anger. They asked: How could Stalin liquidate and disarm the fortified regions on the old borders without building the necessary defenses on the new western borders? The answer is that Stalin was not planning to fight on his territory; Stalin was planning an offensive war against all of Europe. (Ibid., pp. 173-176).

Another defense system of the Soviet Union was the Dnepr military flotilla. All Dnepr river bridges were mined before 1939 and could be thoroughly demolished so that nothing would be left to restore. The Dnepr military flotilla was created in the early 1930s to prevent the establishment and crossing of temporary bridges across the river. The flotilla included 120 warships and motorboats, as well as its own air force with shoreline and air defense batteries. The Dnepr flotilla could securely close off the roads to the industrial regions in the south of Ukraine and to the Black Sea bases of the Soviet Navy. A German attack could be stopped on the Dnepr line, or at least held up for several months. However, when Hitler attacked France, Stalin ordered the removal of mines from the Dnepr river bridges and disbanded the military flotilla. The Dnepr flotilla could only be used in a defensive war on Soviet territory, and Stalin did not believe he needed it. (Source: Ibid., pp. 190-191).

Stalin divided the defensive Dnepr flotilla into two flotillas: the Danube flotilla and the Pinsk flotilla. The Danube flotilla would be useless in a defensive war. In an offensive war, however, the Danube flotilla could be deadly for Germany. It only had to sail 300 or 400 kilometers up the river to the strategically important bridge at Chernavoda, where it could disrupt the petroleum supply from Ploieşti to the port of Constanza. The entire German war machine could be stopped simply because German tanks, planes, and warships would be out of fuel. However, when Germany attacked the Soviet Union, the Danube flotilla found itself cut off from Soviet troops without the possibility of retreat. Most of its ships had to be sunk, while gigantic supplies were either destroyed or left behind. (Source: Ibid., pp. 191-192).

The Pinsk flotilla would also be difficult to use for defense. The Pinsk flotilla had 66 river warships and cutters, a squadron of airplanes, a company of marines, and other units. In the defensive war of 1941, the Soviets had to blow up and abandon all of the ships of the Pinsk flotilla. However, in a war of aggression, the Pinsk flotilla could have used the newly constructed canal from Pinsk to Kobrin, which would then allow its ships to reach the Vistula basin and head further west to the German rivers. In 1945, a Soviet admiral reached Berlin with his flotilla. (Source: Ibid., pp. 193-194).

Every Soviet commander, starting with regiment level and higher, had in his safe a so-called “Red Packet,” which contained the plans for war. When Germany invaded, the commanders opened their “Red Packets,” but they did not find in them anything useful for defense. The Red Army had neither prepared for defense nor conducted any training in defensive operations. The defensive operations of the Red Army in the summer of 1941 were pure improvisation. (Source: Ibid., pp. 252-253).

I could certainly go on. Marcali wrote in comment #439: “Once you have digested this, ask what happened to the well established Stalin-line, defensive fortification par excellence, in Western USSR.”

The answer is that the Stalin Line was destroyed because Stalin was not planning to fight on his territory. Instead, Stalin was planning an offensive war against all of Europe. This is the primary reason why I agreed with Marcali’s comment #439.

You write: “Hitler’s 21 Jun 1941 letter to Mussolini doesn’t prove Barbarossa was launched to preempt an imminent Soviet invasion.”

My response: Hitler indicates in this letter that he is concerned about an attack from the Soviet Union in the near future. I list seven quotes from this letter in my comments #337 and #441 on this discussion thread that show why Hitler is worried about an attack from the Soviet Union. Please go back and read them.

Hitler certainly does discuss other factors in his letter to Mussolini. However, these factors do not mean that Hitler is not concerned about an attack from the Soviet Union in the near future.

You write: “To render a false account you:
• claim “I did not insert any enumeration not in the original letter” – a boldfaced lie;
• claim “verbatim” text despite glaring omissions of principle content and salient points;
• defend your distortion with a ridiculous “Ctrl+C to copy and then Ctrl+V to paste” defense;
• continuously repeat a false narrative while accusing others of “lengthy comments”.”

My response: I did not insert any enumeration not in the original letter. I used Ctrl+C to copy and then Ctrl+V to paste the seven items I quoted from Hitler’s letter to Mussolini. I am not repeating a false narrative or committing fraud as you claim.

You write: “Hitler clearly reaffirmed his prime objective to staff, in press releases and in a Memorandum to OKW 22 Aug 1941:

“The aim of this campaign [Barbarrosa] is to eliminate Russia as a continental ally of Britain [and thus] deprive her of any hope of escaping [her] fate with the help of the remaining great power.”

My response: Hitler did want to remove the Soviet Union as a continental ally of Britain. However, Hitler was also concerned about an attack from the Soviet Union in the near future. He makes this clear in his letter to Mussolini on June 21, 1941.

You write: “You depend on Taylor’s ‘Origins’ as a vital source in ‘Germany’s War’ but completely blackout his ‘Course of German History’, a far more critical text that destroys your ‘Hitler was the victim’ mime. Worse, you continue to cite Harry Elmer Barnes, a paid shill and crackpot, as a legitimate source.”

My response: I have never read AJP Taylor’s book ‘Course of German History’, so obviously I did not use it as a resource when I wrote my book ‘Germany’s War.’ You like to call Taylor egocentric when he writes something you don’t agree with, but then use him as an authority when he says something you do agree with. Here you are using Taylor as an authority.

Harry Elmer Barnes was definitely not a crackpot. Barnes had a PhD in history from Columbia University and wrote numerous scholarly history books. I consider Harry Elmer Barnes as a legitimate source of historical information.

I quote David Irving: “Irrevocable and terrible in its finality, the decision Adolf Hitler now took [Barbarossa] was one he never regretted, even in the jaws of ultimate defeat” and you respond: “Charismatic megalomaniacs seldom, if ever, regret anything they do: they ‘go the way that Providence dictates with the assurance of a sleepwalker’. Suicidal variants like Hitler drag everyone into the abyss.”

My response: Hitler never regretted his decision to invade the Soviet Union because he had no other choice. If he had not invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, Germany and probably all of Europe would have been taken over by the Soviet Union.

Hitler did not know exactly when the Soviet Union was going to attack, but he knew he had to attack the Soviet Union first before the Soviet Union attacked Germany. German intelligence correctly saw the massive concentration of Soviet forces on the German border, but it did not see all of the Soviet military buildup and preparedness. The real picture was much graver than Germany realized. Hitler invaded the Soviet Union to prevent the inevitable attack of the Soviet Union on Germany and all of Europe. (Source: Suvorov, Viktor, The Chief Culprit: Stalin’s Grand Design to Start World War II, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2008, pp. xxi-xxii).

Near the end of my comments #337 and #441 on this discussion thread, I asked you the following questions concerning Molotov’s ridiculous demands made in November 1940 in Berlin to alter the Molotov-Ribbentrop Agreement: “Don’t you think that it was unfair of the Soviet Union to make such ridiculous demands less than 15 months after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact? Don’t you think it was reasonable for Hitler to have felt threatened by such aggressive demands?

You have yet to answer these questions.

I ask: “Don’t you think the evidence I document in my comment #226 on this discussion thread indicates that the Soviet Union was planning to invade Germany and all of Europe?” and you reply: “No.”

My response: What would you regard as sufficient evidence to indicate that the Soviet Union was planning to invade Germany and all of Europe?

You write so much garbage so I will only take the time to address a few of the stupid things you write.

“John T. Flynn was an America First isolationist”

In Ron Unz’s article on the America First movement
he writes the following.

“Alarmed by their growing fear that America might be drawn into another world war without voters having had any say in the matter, a group of Yale Law students launched an anti-interventionist political organization that they named “The America First Committee,” and it quickly grew to 800,000 members, becoming the largest grass-roots political organization in our national history. Numerous prominent public figures joined or supported it, with the chairman of Sears, Roebuck serving as its head, and its youthful members included future presidents John F. Kennedy and Gerald Ford as well as other notables such as Gore Vidal, Potter Stewart, and Sargent Schriver. Flynn served as chairman of the New York City chapter, and the organization’s leading public spokesman was famed aviator Charles Lindbergh, who for decades had probably ranked as America’s greatest national hero.

Throughout 1941, enormous crowds across the country attended anti-war rallies addressed by Lindbergh and the other leaders, with many millions more listening to the radio broadcasts of the events. Mahl shows that British agents and their American supporters meanwhile continued their covert operations to counter this effort by organizing various political front-groups advocating American military involvement, and employing fair means or foul to neutralize their political opponents. Jewish individuals and organizations seem to have played an enormously disproportionate role in that effort.”

“Isolationist” is a term American war mongers use for American peace advocates. Not that these war mongers are especially brave themselves. In both world wars the US entered the war only after the other world powers were already at war with Germany and the US did so from the safety of the other side of the Atlantic ocean. When not behaving like that, the “brave Americans” like to attack small Arab countries also thousands of miles from the US and kill millions of them in countries like Iraq and Libya.

You wrote “Did Flynn think Hitler’s vast rearmament, financed by unsecured MEFO bills (thin air) from 1934, was ‘military Keynesianism’?” Then you ridiculously compare Germany’s defense spending to the USA’s defense spending. Germany was surrounded by three hostile world powers that they fought in WW I, and bordered two of them. The USA had no countries threatening them and any potential threats you conjure up in your mind were thousands of miles away from the USA.

French soldiers continuously crossed the border into Germany to beat up Germans in the 1920s. My mother’s German city Memel was invaded by Lithuania in 1923 and they claimed it as part of Lithuania. These land grabs and border violations helped bring Hitler to power. So, tell me what countries invaded the USA in those years that you would compare Germany’s and the USA’s military spending. That is a moronic comparison.

In chapter one of his book “Germany’s War,”John Wear references Victor Suvorov, the Soviet GRU officer and historian, and his books. Suvorov was given access to closed archives for a paper he was writing.

“Suvorov discovered that the Soviet version of World War II history is a lie and that it conceals the Soviet Union’s responsibility for planning the start of the war. The Red Army in June 1941 was the largest, best equipped army in the history of the world. The concentration of Soviet troops on the German border was frightful. If Hitler had not invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, the Soviet Union would have easily taken over all of Europe. German intelligence correctly saw the massive concentration of Soviet forces on the German border, but it did not see all of the Soviet military preparedness. The real picture was much graver than Germany realized.”

Continuing.

“The Soviet Union adopted a Five Year Plan in 1927 for developing industry. The main focus of the first Five Year Plan was not the production of arms, but rather the creation of an industrial base which was later used to produce armaments. The military emphasis was not so noticeable in these first five years. The Red Army had 79 foreign-made tanks at the beginning of the first plan; at the end of the first plan it had 4,538 tanks.[4]

The second Five Year Plan that began in 1932 in the Soviet Union was a continuation of the development of the industrial base. This meant the creation and purchase of furnaces, giant electricity plants, coal mines, factories, and machinery and equipment. In the early 1930s, American engineers traveled to the Soviet Union and built the largest and most powerful enterprise in the entire world—Uralvagonzavod (the Ural Railroad Car Factory). Uralvagonzavod was built in such a manner that it could at any moment switch from producing railroad cars to producing tanks. In 1941, an order was issued to produce tanks, and Uralvagonzavod without any delays began the mass production of tanks. Uralvagonzavod produced 35,000 T-34 tanks and other weapons during World War II.[5]

The third Five Year Plan that began in 1937 had as its goal the production of military weapons of very high quality in enormous quantities. The Soviet Union under Stalin was highly successful in achieving its goals, and produced superior military weapons on a grandiose scale. For example, the Chelyabinsk tractor factory was completed in the Urals, and similar to Uralvagonzavod this factory was built in such a way that it could begin producing tanks at any time. The Chelyabinsk tractor factory was called Tankograd during the course of the war. It built not only the medium T-34 tanks, but also the heavy IS and KV tank classes.[6]

A third gigantic factory, Uralmash, was built not far away in Sverdlovsk. This factory is among the top 10 engineering factories in the world. The Soviet net of steel-casting factories was greatly expanded in order to supply these three giant factories in the Urals. Magnitogorsk, a city of metallurgists, was built in addition to a huge plant the main output of which was steel armor. In Stalingrad, a tractor factory was also built that in reality was primarily for producing tanks. Automobile, motor, aviation, and artillery factories were also erected at the same time.[7

The most powerful aviation factory in the world was built in the Russian Far East. The city Komsomolsk-na-Amure was built in order to service this factory. Both the factory and the city were built according to American designs and furnished with the most modern American equipment. The American engineers sent to Komsomolsk to install the equipment were astounded by the scope of the construction.[8]”

“Stalin built and mass-produced the best tanks in the world as he built Soviet industry. The Red Army produced the T-28 tank in 1933. Not a single German, British, American, French, or Japanese tank from the 1930s could match the T-28 in terms of weapons, armor, engine power, or the ability to cross water barriers underwater.”

“Suvorov shows that the Soviet Union had 1,400 T-34s at the time of invasion. During the second half of 1941, Soviet industry produced another 1,789 T-34 tanks. More importantly, in 1942 the Soviet Union produced 12,520 T-34 tanks, while in Germany the production of an analogous tank had not begun. The mass production of the T-34 provided the Soviet Union with major advantages over Germany in tank warfare during World War II.”

‘Gen. Heinz Guderian wrote after the war: “…The Russians would have won the war even without the help of their Western allies and would have occupied the whole of Europe. No power on earth could have stopped them.”’

https://www.unz.com/book/john_wear__germanys-war/

I’m just going to pick this propaganda lie that you discuss. The bombing of Guernica.

British historian David Irving found strong evidence against the Guernica claims. From David Irving’s website:
“The conformists’ narrative of events is open to question, as British historian David Irving found when he visited the town thirty years after the raid, researching for his book Guernica to Vietnam; he spoke with survivors and city officials, and checked local newspaper files [April 27] [27 again] [28] [29] and cemetery records [right] [register page 1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6].

In 1987 (1967?) he wrote a letter to The Daily Telegraph briefly reporting what he had found.

In brief, the local registry of births and deaths lists fewer than one hundred deaths from the air raid (most of them killed in one incident in a shelter in a local asylum, the Hospital-Asilo Calzada); bad enough. It will serve to put things in perspective if we show that the local Communist newspaper Euzkadi Roja, publishing a report on the raid on April 28, 1937, included a list of names of those few injured in the attack.” It sounds like when the communist newspaper reported on it at the time, they didn’t report any deaths.

Also included in the link from David Irving’s website below is this:

‘Reporting on a visit to Guernica, The [London] Times Military Correspondent stated on May 5, 1937:

“That Guernica after a week’s bombardment by aircraft and artillery should not have shown signs of fire supports the Nationalist contention that aircraft were not responsible for the burning of this town, which was bombed intermittently for a period of two hours. In Guernica few fragments of bombs have been recovered, the façades of buildings still standing are unmarked, and the few craters I inspected were larger than anything hitherto made by a bomb in Spain. From their position it is a fair inference that these craters were caused by exploding mines which were unscientifically laid to cut roads.”‘

This is what The London Times reported at that time. According to Google’s AI “The Times is widely regarded as one of Britain’s most respected and influential newspapers.”

https://first.fpp.co.uk/History/General/ (this link doesn’t work)

My mother was seventeen years old when she and other German girls began digging ditches in Silesia that were supposed to slow down or stop the Red Army’s tanks. This was late 1944 or early 1945. Soon afterwards she fled the gang raping Red Army and was lucky to escape what the glorious allied soldiers (but much more the Soviets than others) did to two million German women. Many were gang raped and then murdered. The penalty a German soldier received for rape was death. The Americans even raped their allies women. Several hundred French women were raped by American soldiers.

In a previous post you made other stupid statements about how the German government mistreated its people. The German people fought and defended their country like no other people have. They were loyal to the cause to the end, disproving another idiocy stated by you. The allied pilots were called terrorists by the Germans. The Americans and British mass murdered 50,000 people in Hamburg in a few days bombing in 1943. In February 1945 they murdered at least 135,000 Germans in Dresden. All across Germany allied bombers deliberately murdered thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of German civilians, in different cities.

At the same time, enemy armies were closing in from east and west. The Volkssturm was formed in late 1944, comprised of males between the ages 16 and 60. Boys as young as 12 also fought. No Germans welcomed the murderous allied soldiers.

Video Link

In the USSR, which you seem to be fond of, things were different. Not only were millions of Soviets not loyal to the murderous USSR, millions of Soviets, including many Russians, welcomed the German army as liberators. Consistent with that, the Red Army had blocking units, units that would shoot and kill retreating troops.

Norwegian academic Johannes Due Enstad’s book on the German army in the USSR– Many Russians (in addition to Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Estonians and Latvians) hoped that Hitler would free them and welcomed the German soldiers as liberators. There is also substantial film footage of the beleaguered USSR citizens welcoming the Germans.

“Many Russians hoped that Hitler would free them from Stalin.”

‘A note from a Russian included with gifts to the Germans in December 1941. “I am sending these socks as a gift to the invincible German army and pray that you defeat the Bolsheviks so that they are eradicated forever, and also for a quick victory and a safe journey home”’

https://www.hf.uio.no/ilos/english/research/news-and-events/news/2018/many-russians-hoped-that-hitler-would-free-them-fr.html

Ron Unz comments on the USSR in his article Understanding World War II.
“Back in those late Cold War days, the death toll of innocent civilians from the Bolshevik Revolution and the first two decades of the Soviet Regime was generally reckoned at running well into the tens of millions when we include the casualties of the Russian Civil War, the government-induced famines, the Gulag, and the executions. I’ve heard that these numbers have been substantially revised downwards to perhaps as little as twenty million or so, but no matter. Although determined Soviet apologists may dispute such very large figures, they have always been part of the standard narrative history taught within the West.” This would certainly explain why many Soviets hated the Soviet Union and why 50,000 Russian soldiers in the Russian Liberation Army under General Vlasov fought alongside the German army against the Soviets.

https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-understanding-world-war-ii/

In regards to Hitler, he served in the German army in WW I and received the Iron Cross First Class. He was gassed and spent weeks in the hospital. FDR didn’t fight in the war. He had a cushy job as Assistant Secretary of the Navy.

John F Kennedy said of Hitler “He had in him the stuff of which legends are made.”

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39371715

You certainly have a big mouth and have a lot to say about the war. I was lucky to be born after it was over. I think my relatives were pretty typical Germans from those years. Besides my mother’s experience both my grandfathers fought in WW I and both received the Iron Cross. My father’s father was called up a second time in WW II. I had three uncles that fought in the war and one spent three brutal years as a POW of the French after the war.

You sarcastically write to Marcali: “Maybe you are the co-author with your fellow Panzer* Mr. John Wear on his book about WW2?”

My response: Within less than a year, the Soviet Union destroyed a Japanese army in Mongolia, took over the eastern part of Poland by military force, conducted an extremely difficult and successful invasion of Finland in the winter, forced the Baltic nations of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia to join the Soviet Union against their will, and took possession of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina from Romania. These Soviet military conquests and ultimatums expanded the Soviet Union’s territory by 426,000 square kilometers, approximately equal to the surface area of the German Reich in 1919. (Source: Hoffmann, Joachim, Stalin’s War of Extermination, 1941-1945: Planning, Realization, and Documentation, Capshaw, AL: Theses & Dissertations Press, 2001, p. 31).

Why do you think the Soviet Union had completed its acts of aggression? Don’t you think the evidence I document in my comment #226 on this discussion thread indicates that the Soviet Union was planning to invade Germany and all of Europe?

You write about me: “He must be German.”

My response: No, I am a born and raised American citizen. I was born in Houston, Texas. I currently reside in Dallas, Texas. I have lived in the United States all of my life.

You write about me: “He has no historical perspective and denies preceding influences, attitudes, motives, and momentum.”

My response: Actually, I look at all of the evidence. I also read both mainstream and revisionist historical sources.

You write: “Advancing longstanding evil Soviet designs on Europe was good for Manstein, good for Paget and the Brits.”

My response: So, are you saying that R. T. Paget and Erich von Manstein are lying here? Do you have any proof that they are lying? It should be noted that R. T. Paget was strongly anti-Nazi. Paget would have no reason to lie about this matter since Manstein’s trial had ended two years earlier.

Manstein’s British trial also provided important evidence that many of the German Einsatzgruppen reports are not valid. Von Manstein’s lawyer, R. T. Paget, demonstrated that whole areas claimed by the reports to be “cleared of Jews” contained many flourishing Jewish communities that were untouched throughout the entire war. The trial court accepted the argument that the Einsatzgruppen reports were unreliable. The court acquitted von Manstein regarding the Einsatzgruppen activities in his command sector. (Source: Winter, Peter, The Six Million: Fact or Fiction?, 4th edition, The Revisionist Press, 2015, p. 25. See also Paget, Reginald T., Manstein: His Campaigns and His Trial, London: Collins, 1951, pp. 169-171).

You write: “Despite the ‘Saubere Wehrmacht’ [‘Clean Wehrmacht’] myth of innocence in Hitler’s “war of extermination”, Manstein was convicted on nine charges and sentenced to 18 years (reduced to 12). He’d served four when released in 1953.

My response: This statement assumes that Erich von Manstein received a fair trial. Many knowledgeable British people believe he did not. For example, Lord Hankey writes about Manstein’s lawyers in the Foreword to Paget’s book:

“They were successful in obtaining von Manstein’s acquittal on all charges affecting his personal conduct. It was not their fault, nor, so far as I can judge, that of the Court, that they were unable to free him from a liability for orders by Hitler and the German High Command and executed by subordinates. Most of these orders for which Manstein was held vicariously responsible had been in full operation long before his arrival on the scene. The truth is that the whole party, the President, the Members, the Prosecutors, the Defending Counsel and above all the unfortunate prisoner were the victims of ex post facto laws and procedure, which made a defence almost impossible.” (Source: Paget, Reginald T., Manstein: His Campaigns and His Trial, London: Collins, 1951, p. viii).

You write: “In Hitler’s mind, the fall of rotten Bolshevism promised a friendless Britain forced into negotiation: an idée fixe from July 1940. No imminent Soviet threat factored into his decision to launch Barbarossa: it was a war of choice.”

My response: I agree with you that Hitler wanted a friendless Britain that was eager to negotiate peace with Germany. I also agree with you that Hitler wanted “the fall of rotten Bolshevism.” However, Hitler was also concerned that the Soviet Union would attack Germany in the near future.

As we have previously discussed, Hitler indicated his belief that Stalin was planning to invade Germany in his letter to Mussolini on June 21, 1941. The following are some quotes from this letter:

1) “I am writing this letter to you at a moment when months of anxious deliberation and continuous nerve-racking waiting are ending in the hardest decision of my life. I believe—after seeing the latest Russian situation map and after appraisal of numerous other reports—that I cannot take the responsibility for waiting longer, and above all, I believe that there is no other way of obviating this danger—unless it be further waiting, which, however, would necessarily lead to disaster in this or the next year at the latest.”

2) “The destruction of France—in fact, the elimination of all west-European positions—is directing the glances of the British warmongers continually to the place from which they tried to start the war: to Soviet Russia.”

3) “Since the liquidation of Poland, there is evident in Soviet-Russia a consistent trend, which, even if cleverly and cautiously, is nevertheless reverting firmly to the old Bolshevist tendency to expansion of the Soviet State.”

4) “The concentration of Russian forces—I had General Jodl submit the most recent map to your Attaché here, General Maras*—is tremendous. Really, all available Russian forces are at our border.”

5) “Aside from this, Duce, it is not even certain whether we shall have this time, for with so gigantic a concentration of forces on both sides—for I also, was compelled to place more and more armored units on the eastern border, and also to call Finland’s and Rumania’s attention to the danger—there is the possibility that the shooting will start spontaneously at any moment.”

6) “It is conceivable that Russia will try to destroy the Rumanian oil region. We have built up a defense that will—or so I think—prevent the worst. Moreover, it is the duty of our armies to eliminate this threat as rapidly as possible.”

7) “The material that I now contemplate publishing gradually, is so exhaustive that the world will have more occasion to wonder at our forbearance than at our decision, except for that part of the world which opposes us on principle and for which, therefore, arguments are of no use.”

Near the end of my comment #337 on this discussion thread, I also asked you the following questions concerning Molotov’s ridiculous demands made in November 1940 in Berlin to alter the Molotov-Ribbentrop Agreement: “Don’t you think that it was unfair of the Soviet Union to make such ridiculous demands less than 15 months after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact? Don’t you think it was reasonable for Hitler to have felt threatened by such aggressive demands?

You have yet to answer these questions.

You can either deploy your forces defensively or offensively but not both ways.

Once you have digested this, ask what happened to the well established Stalin-line, defensive fortification par excellence, in Western USSR.

That wouldn’t make sense. The leaders of Russia, Great Britain, and France, the countries that started the war should have been punished. Perhaps the US too, for expanding the war when they attacked Germany too when it was safe for them.

Ron Unz wrote this about Patrick Buchanan’s book Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War. This is regarding WWI.

“But although his narrative was what I expected, he provided a wealth of interesting details previously unknown to me. Among other things, he persuasively argued that the German war-guilt was somewhat less than that of most of the other participants, also noting that despite the endless propaganda of “Prussian militarism,” Germany had not fought a major war in 43 years, an unbroken record of peace considerably better than that of most of its adversaries. Moreover, a secret military agreement between Britain and France had been a crucial factor in the unintended escalation, and even so, nearly half the British Cabinet had come close to resigning in opposition to the declaration of war against Germany, a possibility that would have probably led to a short and limited conflict confined to the Continent. I’d also seldom seen emphasized that Japan had been a crucial British ally, and that the Germans probably would have won the war if Japan had fought on the other side.”

I hope I don’t have to mention which countries were the “other participants” or the countries that were Germany’s “adversaries” in the comment above.

https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-understanding-world-war-ii/

Mr. Unz points out in another article the peace talks that Germany proposed in 1917 to end the war. The allied countries have apparently deliberately covered up Germany’s peace proposal to hide their guilt.

‘But near the end of Hochschild’s discussion of the year 1916, he emphasized that unlike Britain there was absolutely no corresponding anti-war movement in most other countries, including Germany. As he put it on p. 217:

“Both sides were committed to fight to the bitter end, and by now, two years into the war, if someone in a prominent position on either side so much as advocated peace talks, it was considered close to treason.”

On reading this, I did a double-take and almost questioned my sanity. Surely, Hochschild must be aware that exactly at that point in time, the government of Germany had publicly proposed international peace talks without preconditions aimed at ending the war, suggesting that the massive, pointless slaughter be halted, perhaps largely on a status quo ante basis.

The Germans had recently won several huge victories, inflicting enormous losses on the Allies in the Battle of the Somme and also completely knocking Rumania out of the war. So riding high on their military success, they emphasized that they were seeking peace on the basis of their strength rather than from any weakness. Unfortunately, the Allies flatly rejected this peace overture, declaring that that the offer proved Germany was close to defeat, so they were determined to hold out for complete victory with major territorial gains.

As a result, many additional millions needlessly died over the next two years, while just a couple of months later in early 1917 Russia’s Czarist government collapsed, eventually leading to the Bolshevik seizure of power, a turning-point with fateful, long-term consequences.’

https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-lost-histories-of-the-great-war/

I write: “The defeat of Germany in World War I certainly did have adverse consequences for Germans” and you respond: “The problem was that it let the top aristocrats off the hook. It would have been better if Ludendorff had been punished instead of being allowed to run around organizing an attempted coup against the government in Munich. Whatever problems one can point out in the post-1945 trials, they left no doubt that it was a waste of time to try repeating that act. That much was good.”

My response: In my opinion, there was nothing good about the International Military Tribunal (IMT) and other Allied postwar trials of Germans.

The mostly Jewish control of the Nuremberg trials is indicated by Nahum Goldmann in his book The Jewish Paradox. Goldmann, president of the World Jewish Congress (WJC), admitted that the idea of the Nuremberg Tribunal and German reparations originated with WJC officials. Only after persistent efforts by WJC officials were Allied leaders persuaded to accept the idea of the Nuremberg trials. Also, the WJC made sure that Germany’s alleged extermination of European Jewry was a primary focus of the trials, and that the defendants would be punished for their involvement in Germany’s extermination process. (Source: World Jewish Congress, Unity in Dispersion, New York: 1948, pp. 141, 264-267).

Two Jewish U.S. Army officers played key roles in the Nuremberg trials. Lt. Col. Murray Bernays, a prominent New York attorney, persuaded U.S. War Secretary Henry Stimson and others to put the defeated German leaders on trial. (Source: Conot, Robert E., Justice at Nuremberg, New York: Harper & Row, 1983, pp. 10-13).

Col. David Marcus, a fervent Zionist, was head of the U.S. government’s War Crimes Branch from ebruary 1946 until April 1947. Marcus was made head of the War Crimes Branch primarily in order “to take over the mammoth task of selecting hundreds of judges, prosecutors and lawyers” for the NMT trials. (Source: Butz, Arthur R., The Hoax of the Twentieth Century: The Case against the Presumed Extermination of European Jewry, Newport Beach, CA: Institute of Historical Review, 1993, pp. 27-28).

Allied prosecutors gave special attention to the alleged extermination of 6 million Jews at the IMT. For example, chief U.S. prosecutor Robert H. Jackson declared in his opening address at the IMT: “The most savage and numerous crimes planned and committed by the Nazis were those against the Jews…It is my purpose to show a plan and design to which all Nazis were fanatically committed, to annihilate all Jewish people…The avowed purpose was the destruction of the Jewish people as a whole…History does not record a crime ever perpetrated against so many victims or one ever carried out with such calculated cruelty.” (Source: Office of the United States Chief of Counsel for the Prosecution of Axis Criminality, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression (11 vols.), Washington, D.C.: U.S. Govt., 1946-1948. (The “red series”) / NC&A, Vol. 1, pp. 134-135).

Sir Hartley Shawcross, the chief British prosecutor at the IMT, echoed Justice Jackson’s sentiments in his final address to the Tribunal: “There is one group to which the method of annihilation was applied on a scale so immense that it is my duty to refer separately to the evidence. I mean the extermination of the Jews. If there was no other crime against these men, this one alone, in which all of them were implicated, would suffice. History holds no parallel to these horrors.” (Source: International Military Tribunal, Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, 42 Vols. Nuremberg: 1947-1949. (The “blue series”) / IMT, Vol. 19, p. 501).

Shawcross also stated in his closing address that “more than 6 million” Jews were killed by the Germans, and that “…murder [was] conducted like some mass production industry in the gas chambers and the ovens of Auschwitz, Dachau, Treblinka, Buchenwald, Mauthausen, Majdanek and Oranienburg.” (Source: Ibid., p. 434).

Numerous observers spoke of the predominance of Jews at the IMT. For example, American prosecutor Thomas Dodd wrote to his wife on September 20, 1945, about the prosecution staff at the IMT:

“You know better than anyone how I hate race or religious prejudice. You know how I have despised anti-Semitism. You know how strongly I feel toward those who preach intolerance of any kind. With that knowledge—you will understand when I tell you that this staff is about 75% Jewish. Now my point is that the Jews should stay away from this trial—for their own sake. For—mark this well—the charge ‘a war for the Jews’ is still being made and in the post-war years it will be made again and again. The too large percentage of Jewish men and women here will be cited as proof of this charge.” (Source: Dodd, Christopher J., Letters from Nuremberg: My Father’s Narrative of a Quest for Justice, New York: Crown Publishing, 2007, pp. 135-136).

U.S. Sen. Robert A. Taft courageously denounced the Nuremberg trials in an October 1946 speech: “The trial of the vanquished by the victors cannot be impartial no matter how it is hedged about with the forms of justice.” Taft went on to state:

“About this whole judgment there is a spirit of vengeance, and vengeance is seldom justice. The hanging of the 11 men convicted will be a blot on the American record which we will long regret. In these trials we have accepted the Russian idea of the purpose of the trials—government policy and not justice—with little relationship to Anglo-Saxon heritage. By clothing policy in forms of legal procedure, we may discredit the whole idea of justice in Europe for years to come.” (Source: Delivered at Kenyon College, Ohio, Oct. 5, 1946. Vital Speeches of the Day, Nov. 1, 1946, p. 47).

Nevertheless, many defenders of the Holocaust story maintain that the 42-volume Trial of the Major War Criminals (The Blue Series) supplies a massive compilation of damning evidence against Germany’s National Socialist regime. In his book Made in Russia: The Holocaust, Carlos Porter confronts the evidence directly by reproducing page after page from the Blue Series. Porter shows that many of the charges made at the IMT are so bizarre that most defenders of the Holocaust story have long since let them lapse. In addition to killing Jews in homicidal gas chambers, the Germans at Nuremberg were accused of:

–building special electrical appliances to zap inmates to death with mass electrical shocks;
–killing 20,000 Jews in a village near Auschwitz with an atomic bomb;
–forcing prisoners to climb trees and then killing the prisoners by cutting down the trees;
–killing 840,000 Russian prisoners at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp using a pedal-driven brain-bashing machine, and then burning the bodies in four mobile crematories;
–torturing and executing people at the Yanov camp in Russia in time to music created by a special orchestra selected from among the prisoners, and then shooting every member of the orchestra;
–grinding the bones of 200 people at one time as described in documents and photographs that have disappeared;
–making lampshades, handbags, driving gloves for SS officers, book bindings, saddles, house slippers, etc. out of human skin;
–killing prisoners and concentration camp inmates for everything from having soiled underwear to having armpit hair; and
–steaming people to death like lobsters in steam chambers at Treblinka.

After this incredible survey of Nuremberg atrocity evidence, Carlos Porter provides numerous examples of improper prosecution tactics at Nuremberg. The defendants at Nuremberg were rarely able to confront their accusers, since affidavits from witnesses who had been deposed months before sufficed. The prosecution made it difficult for the defense lawyers to have timely access to the documents introduced into evidence by the prosecution. Also, photocopies and transcripts were usually submitted into evidence instead of the original German documents, which in many cases seemed to have disappeared. Finally, the defense had access only to those documents which the prosecution considered material to the case. The defense had no right to review the tons of remaining documents that might help them defend their clients. (Source: Porter, Carlos Whitlock, Made in Russia: The Holocaust, Historical Review Press, 1988).

It is also notable that Dr. Hans Laternser, the defense counsel for the General Staff and the O.K.W., submitted no fewer than 3,186 affidavits during the IMT sworn to by key German witnesses. None of these affidavits was ever published in the IMT Blue Series. (Source: Irving, David, Nuremberg: The Last Battle, London: Focal Point Publications, 1996, p. 166).

In fairness, many Polish historians and judges without verifiable Jewish backgrounds also played an important role in establishing the official Holocaust narrative. These people include historian Eugeniusz Szrojt and judges Władysław Bednarz, Zdzisław Łukaszkiewicz and Jan Sehn. These Poles and the communist Polish judiciary helped write the official Nazi-gas-chamber narrative that is still being taught and believed worldwide today. (Source: Rudolf, Germar, Nazi Gas Chambers: The Roots of the Story, London: Academic Research Media Review Education Group LTD, 2025, p. 119).

I write: “the Red Army had not implemented proper defensive measures” and you respond: “That is a post hoc judgment which has no relevance for understanding the decisions which were made before the war.”

My response: I don’t agree with your statement.

Suvorov states in The Chief Culprit that both German and Soviet forces were positioned for attack on June 22, 1941. The position of the divisions of the Red Army and the German army on the border mirrored each other. The airfields of both armies were moved all the way up to the border. From the defensive point of view, this kind of deployment of troops and airfields by both armies was stupid and suicidal. Whichever army attacked first would be able to easily encircle the troops of the other army. Hitler attacked first to enable German troops to trap and encircle the best units of the Red Army. (Source: Suvorov, Viktor, The Chief Culprit: Stalin’s Grand Design to Start World War II, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2008, p. xx).

Also, as I write in comment #412 on this discussion thread:

“The book Manstein: His Campaigns and His Trial by R. T. Paget provides additional information concerning Mainstein’s beliefs. Paget writes on page 30 of this book:

“In May, Hitler informed his generals that he had learnt of a Russian intention to invade Germany, and that this intention must be forestalled by a German counter-stroke. Von Manstein believed, and still believes, that in the summer of 1941 the Russians intended to invade Germany. He had visited the Red Army manoeuvres and had formed a high opinion of Russian military capacity. The great military successes of the initial phase of the invasion resulted largely from the fact that the Russians were massed on the frontier instead of being disposed in depth. In von Manstein’s opinion, the Russian command was far too competent to have so disposed its forces if it had intended to defend. He believes that the dispositions adopted by the Russians were consistent only with a massing upon the frontier for the purpose of launching invasion. In confirmation of this theory General Vlassov who defended Moscow in 1941 and subsequently changed sides and led the so-called Vlassov Army of pro-German Russia informed the Germans that the Russian invasion was planned for August-September 1941.”

You write about Stalin’s speech of May 5, 1941: “This speech says nothing about the USSR initiating a war with an attack of its own but simply asserts that any campaign will be done in an offensive spirit.”

My response: Within less than a year, the Soviet Union destroyed a Japanese army in Mongolia, took over the eastern part of Poland by military force, conducted an extremely difficult and successful invasion of Finland in the winter, forced the Baltic nations of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia to join the Soviet Union against their will, and took possession of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina from Romania. These Soviet military conquests and ultimatums expanded the Soviet Union’s territory by 426,000 square kilometers, approximately equal to the surface area of the German Reich in 1919. (Source: Hoffmann, Joachim, Stalin’s War of Extermination, 1941-1945: Planning, Realization, and Documentation, Capshaw, AL: Theses & Dissertations Press, 2001, p. 31).

It seems to me that the Soviet Union had already been engaging in numerous offensive invasions and conquests prior to June 22, 1941.

I write: “According to the official Communist Party newspaper, Pravda, on August 18, 1940, the Soviet Union had more than 1 million trained parachutists at the beginning of the war” and you respond “A gross twisting of words by Rezun.”

My response: The following is quoted from page 225 of Sean McMeekin’s book Stalin’s War:

“All through the 1930s, the Red Army had been training parachutists, many first jumping off from parachute towers erected in cities before graduating to airborne drops. According to a possibly inflated boast in Pravda on August 18, 1940, there were a million trained parachutists in the USSR. Whatever the real number, the Soviet high command made full use of this resource, with thousands of trained parachutists spread out across six airborne brigades.”

So, I think it is fair to say that Pravda had boasted on August 18, 1940, that there were 1 million trained parachutists in the Soviet Union. Whether this is an accurate number is subject to question.

You write: “Well, haven’t you just, yourself, answered your original question? Why wouldn’t Britain demonise Soviet Union if it could? And it did, as it does today fanning the war in Donbas. No ally there, my learned friend. You’ve fallen into your own trap, fancy that.”

My response: Actually, I haven’t fallen into my own trap. Both American and British leaders praised the Soviet Union during World War II. It was only after the war that these two Allied nations began to demonize the Soviet Union.

For example, let’s look at the United States. Despite Stalin’s criminal record, Franklin D. Roosevelt was a good friend of Josef Stalin. Roosevelt indulged in provocative name-calling against the heads of totalitarian nations such as Germany, Italy, and Japan, but never against Stalin or the Soviet Union. Roosevelt always spoke favorably of Stalin, and American wartime propaganda referred to Stalin affectionately as “Uncle Joe.”

Roosevelt’s attitude toward Stalin is remarkable considering that his first appointed ambassador to the Soviet Union warned Roosevelt of the danger of supporting Stalin. William Bullitt served as America’s first ambassador to the Soviet Union from November 1933 to 1936. Bullitt left the Soviet Union with few illusions, and by the end of his tenure he was openly hostile to the Soviet government.

Bullitt stated in his final report from Moscow on April 20, 1936, that the Russian standard of living was possibly lower than that of any other country in the world. Bullitt reported that the Bulgarian Comintern leader, Dimitrov, had admitted that the Soviet popular front and collective security tactics were aimed at undermining the foreign capitalist systems. Bullitt concluded that relations of sincere friendship between the Soviet Union and the United States were impossible. (Source: Hoggan, David L., The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed, Costa Mesa, CA: Institute for Historical Review, 1989, p. 423).

Bullitt also stated in his final report to the State Department:

“The problem of relations with the government of the Soviet Union is…a subordinate part of the problem presented by communism as a militant faith determined to produce world revolution and the ‘liquidation’ (that is to say murder) of all non-believers. There is no doubt whatsoever that all orthodox communist parties in all countries, including the United States, believe in mass murder…The final argument of the believing communist is invariably that all battle, murder, and sudden death, all the spies, exiles, and firing squads are justified.” (Source: Tzouliadis, Tim, The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin’s Russia, New York: The Penguin Press, 2008, p. 73).

Joseph E. Davies succeeded William Bullitt as ambassador to the Soviet Union. Davies reported to President Roosevelt on April 1, 1938, that the terror in Russia was “a horrifying fact.” Davies complained of the gigantic Soviet expenditures for defense, totaling approximately 25% of the Soviet Union’s total income in 1937. Davies reported that Stalin, in a letter to Pravda on February 14, 1938, had confirmed his intention to spread Communism around the world. Stalin also promised in his letter that the Soviet Union would work with foreign Communists to achieve this goal. Stalin concluded in his letter, “I wish very much…that there were no longer on earth such unpleasant things as a capitalist environment, the danger of a military attack, the danger of the restoration of capitalism, and so on.” Davies stated in his report that the Soviet Union could best be described as “a terrible tyranny.” (Source: Tzouliadis, Tim, The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin’s Russia, New York: The Penguin Press, 2008, p. 73).

Roosevelt was fully aware of the slave-labor system, the liquidation of the kulaks, the man-made famine, the extreme poverty and backwardness, and the extensive system of espionage and terror that existed in the Soviet Union. However, from the very beginning of his administration, Roosevelt sang the praises of a regime which recognized no civil liberties whatsoever. In an attempt to gain swift Congressional approval for Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union, Roosevelt even stated that Stalin’s regime was at the forefront of “peace and democracy in the world.” At a White House press conference, Roosevelt also claimed that there was freedom of religion in the Soviet Union. (Source: Tzouliadis, Tim, The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin’s Russia, New York: The Penguin Press, 2008, p. 73).

Henry A. Wallace, vice president of the United States during Roosevelt’s third term, joined the chorus hailing the Soviet Union as a gallant ally whose good faith and good intentions could not be questioned. Vice-President Wallace preached that the Soviet Union could do no wrong, and that any criticism of Stalin’s dictatorship was akin to treason. (Source: Chamberlain, William Henry, America’s Second Crusade, Chicago: Regnery, 1950, pp. 242-244).

Wallace even stated in a speech that “There are no more similar countries in the world than the Soviet Union and the United States of America.” (Source: Chamberlain, William Henry, America’s Second Crusade, Chicago: Regnery, 1950, pp. 242-244).

The Roosevelt administration’s support for the Soviet Union was also hailed by former ambassador Joseph Davies in his book Mission to Moscow, which praised Stalin’s tough-minded ability to protect himself from internal threat. Published in 1941, Mission to Moscow provided welcome reassurance to the American public that their democracy was in alliance with a fair-minded and trustworthy Soviet leader. The book became a runaway international success, selling 700,000 copies in the United States alone, and topping the bestseller lists in the 13 languages into which it was translated. (Source: Ibid., p. 147).

Among other things, Davies said in his book that the Soviets wanted “to promote the brotherhood of man and to improve the lot of the common people. They wish to create a society in which men live as equals, governed by ethical ideas. They are devoted to peace.” Mission to Moscow was turned into a Hollywood movie in 1943 at a time when the American media were celebrating Soviet military triumphs. State Department experts on the Soviet Union called the movie “one of the most blatantly propagandistic pictures ever seen.” Stalin awarded Joseph Davies the Order of Lenin in May 1945 for his contribution to “friendly Soviet-American relations.” (Source: Dobbs, Michael, Six Months in 1945, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012, p. 215).

The Soviet Union had been a totalitarian regime since 1920. By the time Hitler’s National Socialist Party came to power in 1933, the Soviet government had already murdered millions of its own citizens. The Soviet terror campaign accelerated in the late 1930s, resulting in the murder of many more millions of Soviet citizens as well as thousands of American citizens working in the Soviet Union. Many Americans lost their entire families in the Soviet purge of the late 1930s. Despite these well-documented facts, the Roosevelt administration always fully supported the Soviet Union. (Source: Tzouliadis, Tim, The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin’s Russia, New York: The Penguin Press, 2008, pp. 100-102, 105, 127).

By contrast, the Roosevelt administration’s relationship with Germany steadily deteriorated due to Roosevelt’s acerbic hostility toward Hitler’s regime. Roosevelt and his administration made every effort to convince the American public to support war against Germany even though Hitler had never wanted war with either the United States or Great Britain.

Stalin-friendly journalists such as Walter Duranty of the New York Times and fellow travelers such as George Bernard Shaw also helped cover-up Soviet crimes such as the famine-genocide of the early 1930s and the Great Terror. By contrast, they emphasized German crimes such as the Röhm purge and Kristallnacht. This double standard, when it comes to the public exposure of the crimes of Hitler and Stalin, has continued in the historical literature to this day. (Source: McMeekin, Sean, Stalin’s War: A New History of World War II, New York: Basic Books, 2021, pp. 47-48).

The Soviets, British and Americans were the biggest liars and war criminals.

You write: “You keep regurgitating — desperately — the same retread Rezun reference.
There is a long list of posts upthread, including by posters [Incitatus] and [Patrick McNally], comprehensively debunking this Rezun fellow, and his ‘preemptive German invasion’ baloney.”

My response: My comment #226 on this discussion thread lists 44 reasons why we know that the Soviet Union was preparing to attack Germany. Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 prevented this from happening.

Contrary to your statement, neither Incitatus nor Patrick McNally have comprehensively debunked Rezun’s thesis.

You write: “There is also [Big Z] #384 AI conclusion re Rezun. An MI6 shill. Nothing more.”

My response: Rezun is not an MI6 shill. MI6 would have no interest in supporting a thesis that Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union was preemptive in nature.

You write: “{… that was out to conquer all of Europe? It would not be in their interest to do so.} Obviously a false assertion: straight from MI6 disinformation playbook. Nice try…I don’t know if you are serious or pretending you don’t know.”

My response: Why wouldn’t it be in the interest of the Soviet Union to conquer all of Europe? As it turned out, the Soviet Union did conquer the eastern half of Europe.

You write: “As soon as Nazi Germany was prostrate, Anglo-Americans started planning to nuke USSR***. Some allies.”

My response: If the Anglo-Americans wanted to nuke the Soviet Union, then why didn’t they nuke the Soviet Union? They certainly had developed the nuclear bomb and could have used nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union if they had wanted to.

Certainly Gen. George Patton wanted to continue fighting the Soviet Union. On May 8, 1945, the day the war in Europe officially ended, Patton spoke his mind in an “off the record” press briefing. With tears in his eyes, Patton recalled those “who gave their lives in what they believed was the final fight in the cause of freedom.” Patton continued:

“I wonder how [they] will speak today when they know that for the first time in centuries, we have opened Central and Western Europe to the forces of Genghis Khan. I wonder how they feel now that they know there will be no peace in our times and that Americans, some not yet born, will have to fight the Russians tomorrow, or 10, 15 or 20 years from tomorrow. We have spent the last months since the Battle of the Bulge and the crossing of the Rhine stalling; waiting for Montgomery to get ready to attack in the North; occupying useless real estate and killing a few lousy Huns when we should have been in Berlin and Prague. And this Third Army could have been. Today we should be telling the Russians to go to hell instead of hearing them tell us to pull back. We should be telling them if they didn’t like it to go to hell and invite them to fight. We’ve defeated one aggressor against mankind and established a second far worse, more evil and more dedicated than the first.” (Source: Wilcox, Robert K., Target: Patton, Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2008, pp. 331-332).

A few days later Patton shocked everyone at a Paris hotel gathering by saying basically the same things. At a later gathering in Berlin, when asked to drink a toast with a Soviet general, Patton told his translator, “tell that Russian sonovabitch that from the way they’re acting here, I regard them as enemies and I’d rather cut my throat than have a drink with one of my enemies!” (Source: Ibid., p. 333).

Patton became known among U.S. and Soviet leaders as a bona fide menace and a threat to world peace. In addition, Patton was viewed as insubordinate, uncontrollable, and, in the eyes of some, treasonous. Douglas Bazata claims he was given the order to assassinate Patton by the Office of Strategic Services, an American military espionage ring. Bazata says he shot Patton during a planned auto wreck of Patton’s vehicle on December 9, 1945. Patton later died in a hospital on December 21, 1945, under very suspicious circumstances. (Source: Ibid., pp. 342, 391).

You ask: “Are you joking?”

No, I am not joking. During World War II Britain and the Soviet Union were allies. It was only after the war that the Soviet Union became an enemy of Britain.

You write: “Who doesn’t know about famous Churchill speech calling for an “iron curtain”…What is Cold War for you and why it happened?”

My response: World War II was supposedly fought to stop fascist aggression and to create democratic institutions in the liberated nations of Europe. However, within a remarkably short period after the end of the war, the Soviet Union ruthlessly subjected Eastern Europe to its totalitarian control. The Red Army brought Moscow-trained secret policemen into every Soviet occupied country, put local communists in control of the national media, and dismantled youth groups and other civic organizations. The Soviets also brutally arrested, murdered, and deported people whom they believed to be anti-Soviet, and enforced a policy of ethnic cleansing. (Source: Applebaum, Anne, Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, New York: Doubleday, 2012, pp. 192-193).

On March 5, 1946, less than 10 months after the defeat of Germany, Winston Churchill made his dramatic Iron Curtain speech in Fulton, Missouri. Churchill stated in this speech: “A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory…The Communist parties, which were very small in all these Eastern states of Europe, have been raised to pre-eminence and power far beyond their numbers and are seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian control.” (Source: Ibid.).

Churchill thus acknowledged that the Soviet Union was obtaining control of Eastern Europe. A war allegedly fought for democracy and freedom had turned into a nightmare for the people of the Eastern European nations.

The end of World War II inexorably led to the start of the Cold War. Germany’s mortal enemy during the war—the Soviet Union—soon became the enemy of every nation in the Western world. However, even after exposure of the evil nature of the Soviet Union, historians continued to write that Germany bore sole responsibility for starting World War II. History is written by the victors, and the victors did everything possible to make their actions look good. As Winston Churchill famously stated in the late 1940s, “History will be kind to me because I intend to write it.” (Source: Davies, Norman, No Simple Victory: World War II in Europe, 1939-1945, New York: Viking Penguin, 2007, p. 487).

You ask Marcali: “Are you able to provide a meaning to your comment? Who do you refer to as a British ally?”

My response: The primary British allies during World War II were the Soviet Union, France, and the United States. Marcali and I are wondering why the British MI6 would promote Suvorov’s work, which includes the book The Chief Culprit. This book claims that the Soviet Union planned to invade and take over not only Germany, but also all of Europe.

You write: “Yet your answer is that Rezun wrote a book, and therefore — by implication — cannot possibly be an MI6 agent? Circular illogic.”

My response: The Chief Culprit by Viktor Suvorov documents that Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union was preemptive in nature. This preemptive German invasion prevented the Soviet Union from conquering not only Germany, but all of Europe.

Why would MI6 promote a book that documents that Great Britain supported an ally that was out to conquer all of Europe? It would not be in their interest to do so.

Why would the British support a thesis that her holy ally was after all a war monger criminal?

You write: “If I add 2+2, I get 4. What do you get, an imaginary number? (i² = -1) Regards.”

My response: I get an extremely well-researched book titled The Chief Culprit.

You write: “In any case, Manstein found no evidence of an impending Soviet offensive (emphasis added) [‘Lost Victories’ p.181]:

“I think it would be nearest the truth to describe the Soviet dispositions – to which the occupation of eastern Poland, Bessarabia and the Baltic territories had already contributed very strong forces – as a ‘deployment against every contingency’. On 22nd June 1941, undoubtedly, the Soviet Union’s forces were still strung-out in such depth that they could then have been used only in a defensive war.”

My response: The next three sentences in Manstein’s statement on page 181 are:

“Yet the pattern could have been switched in no time to meet any change in Germany’s political or military situation. With a minimum of delay the Red Army–each of whose army groups was numerically, if not qualitatively, superior to the German army group facing it–could have closed up and become capable of going over to the attack. Thus the Soviet dispositions did in fact constitute a latent threat, even though they remained formally defensive up to 22nd June.”

The book Manstein: His Campaigns and His Trial by R. T. Paget provides additional information concerning Mainstein’s beliefs. Paget writes on page 30 of this book:

“In May, Hitler informed his generals that he had learnt of a Russian intention to invade Germany, and that this intention must be forestalled by a German counter-stroke. Von Manstein believed, and still believes, that in the summer of 1941 the Russians intended to invade Germany. He had visited the Red Army manoeuvres and had formed a high opinion of Russian military capacity. The great military successes of the initial phase of the invasion resulted largely from the fact that the Russians were massed on the frontier instead of being disposed in depth. In von Manstein’s opinion, the Russian command was far too competent to have so disposed its forces if it had intended to defend.
He believes that the dispositions adopted by the Russians were consistent only with a massing upon the frontier for the purpose of launching invasion. In confirmation of this theory General Vlassov who defended Moscow in 1941 and subsequently changed sides and led the so-called Vlassov Army of pro-German Russia informed the Germans that the Russian invasion was planned for August-September 1941.”

You write: “Defeat should have consequences, not least in acknowledgement.”

My response: The defeat of Germany in World War I certainly did have adverse consequences for Germans.

It is estimated that approximately 800,000 Germans perished because of the Allied naval blockade after World War I. (Source: Tansill, Charles C., “The United States and the Road to War in Europe,” in Barnes, Harry Elmer (ed.), Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, Newport Beach, CA: Institute for Historical Review, 1993, p. 96).

The blockade’s architect and chief advocate had been the first lord of the admiralty, Winston Churchill. His confessed aim had been to starve the whole German population into submission. (Source: Buchanan, Patrick J., Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War, New York: Crown Publishers, 2008, p. 79).

One commentator noted the effects of the blockade: “Nations can take philosophically the hardships of war. But when they lay down their arms and surrender on assurances that they may have food for their women and children, and then find that this worst instrument of attack on them is maintained—then hate never dies.” (Source: Tansill, Charles C., Back Door to War: The Roosevelt Foreign Policy 1933-1941, Chicago: Regnery, 1952, p. 24).

Herbert Hoover said of the Allied blockade in Germany: “The blockade should be taken off…these people should be allowed to return to production not only to save themselves from starvation and misery but that there should be awakened in them some resolution for continued national life…the people are simply in a state of moral collapse…We have for the last month held that it is now too late to save the situation.” (Source: O’Brien, Francis William (ed.), Two Peacemakers in Paris: The Hoover-Wilson Post-Armistice Letters, 1918-1920, College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1978, p. 129).

When Hoover was in Brussels in 1919, a British admiral arrogantly said to him, “Young man, I don’t see why you Americans want to feed these Germans.” Hoover impudently replied, “Old man, I don’t understand why you British want to starve women and children after they are licked.” (Source: Hoover, Herbert, Memoirs, Vol. 1, Years of Adventure, New York: MacMillan, 1951-1952, p. 345).

George E. R. Gedye was sent to Germany in February 1919 on an inspection tour. Gedye described the impact of the blockade upon the German people:

“Hospital conditions were appalling. A steady average of 10% of the patients had died during the war years from lack of fats, milk, and good flour. Camphor, glycerine and cod-liver oil were unprocurable. This resulted in high infant mortality…We saw some terrible sights in the children’s hospital, such as the ‘starvation babies’ with ugly, swollen heads…Such were the conditions in Unoccupied Territory. Our report naturally urged the immediate opening of the frontiers for fats, milk, and flour…but the terrible blockade was maintained as a result of French insistence…until the Treaty of Versailles was signed in June, 1919…No severity of punishment could restrain the Anglo-American divisions of the Rhine from sharing their rations with their starving German fellow-creatures.” (Source: Gedye, George E. R., The Revolver Republic; France’s Bid for the Rhine, London: J. W. Arrowsmith, Ltd., 1930, pp. 29-31).

So, the end of World War I had severe consequences for Germans. Hundreds of thousands of Germans were intentionally starved to death by the Allies.

You write: “The Treaty of Versailles was not the mistake: lack of enforcement, even if it meant Allied occupation, was the cardinal error.”

My response: I do not agree with this statement.

President Woodrow Wilson in an address to Congress on January 8, 1918, set forth his Fourteen Points as a blueprint to peacefully end World War I. The main principles of Wilson’s Fourteen Points were a non-vindictive peace, national self-determination, government by the consent of the governed, an end of secret treaties, and an association of nations strong enough to check aggression and keep the peace in the future. Faced with ever increasing American reinforcements of troops and supplies and a starvation blockade imposed by the Allies, Germany decided to end World War I by signing an armistice on November 11, 1918. The parties agreed to a pre-Armistice contract that bound the Allies to make the final peace treaty conform to Wilson’s Fourteen Points. (Source: Chamberlain, William Henry, America’s Second Crusade, Chicago: Regnery, 1950, pp. 13-15, 20-22).

The Treaty of Versailles was a deliberate violation of the pre-armistice contract. Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles placed upon Germany the sole responsibility “for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies.” This so-called “war guilt clause” was fundamentally unfair and aroused widespread hatred among virtually all Germans. It linked up Germany’s obligation to pay reparations with a blanket self-condemnation to which almost no German could subscribe. (Source: Tansill, Charles C., “The United States and the Road to War in Europe,” in Barnes, Harry Elmer (ed.), Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, Newport Beach, CA: Institute for Historical Review, 1993, pp. 81, 84).

The Allies under the Versailles Treaty could set reparations at any amount they wanted. In 1920, the Allies set the final bill for reparations at the impossible sum of 269 billion gold marks. The Allied Reparations Committee in 1921 lowered the amount of reparations to 132 billion gold marks or approximately 33 billion dollars–still an unrealistic demand. (Source: Franz-Willing, “The Origins of the Second World War,” The Journal of Historical Review, Torrance, CA: Vol. 7, No. 1, Spring 1986, p. 103).

The Allied representatives at the Paris Peace Conference decided that Germany should lose all of her colonies. All private property of German citizens in German colonies was also forfeited. The rationale for this decision was the hypocritical guise of humanitarian motives that claimed that Germany had totally failed to appreciate the duties of colonial trusteeship. Germany was extremely upset that the Allied governments refused to count the loss of her colonies as a credit in her reparations account. Some Germans estimated the value of Germany’s colonies at $9 billion. This was a large sum of money that would have greatly reduced Germany’s financial burden to pay reparations under the treaty’s war guilt clause. (Source: Tansill, Charles C., “The United States and the Road to War in Europe,” in Barnes, Harry Elmer (ed.), Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, Newport Beach, CA: Institute for Historical Review, 1993, pp. 86-87).

The Treaty of Versailles forced Germany to cede 73,485 square kilometers of her territory, inhabited by 7,325,000 people, to neighboring states. Germany lost 75% of her annual production of zinc ore, 74.8% of iron ore, 7.7% of lead ore, 28.7% of coal, and 4% of potash. Of her annual agricultural production, Germany lost 19.7% in potatoes, 18.2% in rye, 17.2% in barley, 12.6% in wheat, and 9.6% in oats. The Saar territory and other regions to the west of the Rhine were occupied by foreign troops and were to remain occupied for 15 years until a plebiscite was held. The costs of the occupation of the Saar territory totaling 3.64 billion gold marks had to be paid by Germany. (Source: Franz-Willing, “The Origins of the Second World War,” The Journal of Historical Review, Vol. 7, No. 1, Spring 1986, p. 103).

The Versailles Treaty also forced Germany to disarm almost completely. The treaty abolished the general draft, prohibited all artillery and tanks, allowed a volunteer army of only 100,000 troops and officers, and abolished the air force. The navy was reduced to six capital ships, six light cruisers, 12 destroyers, 12 torpedo-boats, 15,000 men and 500 officers. After the delivery of its remaining navy, Germany had to hand over its merchant ships to the Allies with only a few exceptions. All German rivers had to be internationalized and overseas cables ceded to the victors. An international military committee oversaw the process of disarmament until 1927. (Source: Ibid.).

The requirement of German disarmament was especially pernicious because Germany in 1918 and 1919 had almost been completely taken over by militant Communists. Who were these people? In Berlin, Landsberg and Haase, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg; in Munich, Kurt Eisner, Lipp and Landauer, Toller, Levine and Levien; in the Ruhr, Markus and Levinson; in Magdeburg, Brandeis; in Dresden, Lipinsky, Geyer and Fleissner; in Bremerhaven and Kiel, Grunewald and Kohn; in the Palatinate, Lilienthal and Heine. These militant Communist agitators were all Jews. (Source: Degrelle, Leon, Hitler: Born at Versailles, Torrance, CA: Institute for Historical Review, 1992, pp. 387-388).

Since Jews were key advisors at the Versailles peace conference, the unfairness of the Versailles Treaty is not surprising. Dr. E. J. Dillon wrote:

“Of all the collectives 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.” (Source: Dillon, E. J., The Inside Story of the Peace Conference, New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1920, p. 12).

Historian Raymond Cartier summed up the Treaty of Versailles:

“In retrospect it is striking to contemplate this monument to ignorance and error. The treaty gave a chaotic and brutal Poland vast territories inhabited by Germans. It defied geography and politics by creating the Danzig corridor. It established a Czechoslovakia, a Romania, and a Yugoslavia bursting with minorities, all would-be states flouting Wilsonian principles. It left it to a commission to fix the amount of Allied claims but proclaimed the principle of total reparations based on article 231, by which Germany was to admit total guilt for starting the war. Article 228 demanded that Germany hand over all ‘war criminals,’ including the Kaiser and all the generals of the German army.” (Source: Degrelle, Leon, Hitler Democrat, Washington, D.C.: The Barnes Review, 2012, pp. 57-58).

The German delegation in Paris was formally presented with the terms of the Treaty of Versailles on May 7, 1919. At first the German delegation refused to sign the treaty. After German delegate Johann Giesberts read the long list of humiliating provisions of the treaty, he stated with vehemence: “This shameful treaty has broken me, for I had believed in Wilson until today…I believed him to be an honest man, and now that scoundrel sends us such a treaty.” (Source: Luckau, Alma, The German Delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, New York: Columbia University Press, 1941, p. 124).

German foreign minister Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau replied: “It is demanded of us that we admit ourselves to be the only ones guilty of the war. Such a confession in my mouth would be a lie. We are far from declining any responsibility for this great world war…but we energetically deny that Germany and its people, who were convinced that they were making a war of defense, were alone guilty….” (Source: Luckau, Alma, The German Delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, New York: Columbia University Press, 1941, p. 124).

Germany eventually signed the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919, because she faced death by starvation and invasion if she refused. With the naval blockade still in force and her merchant ships and even Baltic fishing boats sequestered, Germany could not feed her people. Germany’s request to buy 2.5 million tons of food was denied by the Allies. U.S. warships now supported the blockade. With German families starving, Bolshevik uprisings in several German cities, Trotsky’s Red Army driving into Europe, Czechs and Poles ready to strike from the east, and Allied forces prepared to march on Berlin, Germany was forced to capitulate. (Source: Buchanan, Patrick J., Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War, New York: Crown Publishers, 2008, pp. 77, 83).

Francesco Nitti, prime minister of Italy, said of the Versailles Treaty: “It will remain forever a terrible precedent in modern history that against all pledges, all precedents and all traditions, the representatives of Germany were never even heard; nothing was left to them but to sign a treaty at a moment when famine and exhaustion and threat of revolution made it impossible not to sign it.…” (Source: Hoover, Herbert, Memoirs, Vol. 1, Years of Adventure, New York: MacMillan, 1951-1952, p. 341).

You write: “The full document is much longer, but it very clear that the final version of Soviet military strategy assembled on May 14, 1941, was predicated on the war starting out with an attack on the USSR which would necessitate defensive fighting to halt the enemy advance…The most you may say is that it was done badly because of the shift in frontiers.”

My response: This is nonsense. The German army did so exceptionally well at first because the Red Army had not implemented proper defensive measures.

On May 5, 1941, Stalin made it clear to his generals that the Soviet Union would be the aggressor in a war with Germany. At a banquet a Soviet general toasted Stalin’s peaceful foreign policy. Stalin intervened:

“Allow me to make a correction. A peaceful foreign policy secured peace in our country. A peaceful foreign policy is a good thing. For a while, we drew a line of defenses until we rearmed our army [and] supplied it with modern means of combat. Now, when our army has been rebuilt, our technology modernized, [now that we are] strong [enough] for combat, now we must shift from defense to offense. In conducting the defense of our country, we are compelled to act in an aggressive manner. From defense we have to shift to a military policy of offense. It is indispensable that we reform our training, our propaganda, our press to a mindset of offense. The Red Army is a modern army, and the modern army is an army of offense.”

The general who made the toast to Stalin’s peaceful foreign policy was discharged a few days after the banquet. (Source: Suvorov, Viktor, The Chief Culprit: Stalin’s Grand Design to Start World War II, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2008, p. 205).

Airborne assault troops were a part of Stalin’s offensive plans. According to the official Communist Party newspaper, Pravda, on August 18, 1940, the Soviet Union had more than 1 million trained parachutists at the beginning of the war. Airborne assault troops can only be used during offensive operations and only in conjunction with regular troops advancing against the enemy. Declassified documents indicate that Pravda lowered the number of Russian paratroopers to 1 million to calm fears of Soviet aggression. The actual number of trained parachutists in the Soviet Union at the beginning of the war was arguably closer to 2 million. Never before had the world seen such large-scale preparations for offensive war. (Source: Ibid., p. 73; See also McMeekin, Sean, Stalin’s War: A New History of World War II, New York: Basic Books, 2021, pp. 224-225).

The Red Army needed an air armada of transport planes and gliders to deliver hundreds of thousands of paratroopers. Soviet factories started the mass production of cargo gliders beginning in the spring of 1941. On April 23, 1941, Stalin and Molotov signed an order to accelerate the production of an 11-seat glider with a deadline of May 15, 1941, and of a 20-seat glider with a deadline of July 1, 1941. The gliders that were produced in the spring of 1941 had to be used by the latest in the early fall of 1941. Gliders had light and fragile bodies and wings and could not be parked outdoors. Keeping a huge cargo glider outdoors during fall winds and rains would harm it beyond repair. Since all available hangars were already full with previously produced gliders, the mass production of gliders in the spring of 1941 meant that they had to be used either in the summer of 1941 or early fall at the latest. (Source: p. 76).

Cargo warplanes are used to deliver assault forces with parachutists to the enemy’s rear. Soviet war-transport aviation used the American Douglas DC-3, which was considered to be the best cargo plane in the world at the start of World War II, as its primary cargo plane. In 1938, the U.S. government sold to Stalin the production license and the necessary amount of the most complex equipment for the DC-3’s production. The Soviet Union also bought 20 DC-3s from the United States before the war. In 1939, the Soviet Union produced six identical DC-3 aircraft; in 1940, it produced 51 DC-3 aircraft; and in 1941, it produced 237 DC-3 aircraft. During the entire war 2,419 DC-3s or equivalent planes were produced in Soviet factories. (Source: Ibid., p. 77).

The Soviet gliders and transport planes would be easy prey for enemy fighters if the Soviet Union did not secure complete air superiority. The Red Army had to begin the war with a massive air attack and invasion against the enemy’s air bases. Tens of thousands of paratroopers could then be dropped to seize and control key bases and strategic sites. Any other scenario was not viable. Instead, it was Hitler who carried out a preemptive strike, and Stalin’s strategy to strike the first blow was aborted. The Soviet Union’s carefully designed plan to mount a massive air offensive followed by an assault of airborne troops had to be abandoned in the desperate rush to fight a defensive war. (Source: Ibid., pp. 77-78).

The Soviet gliders and transport planes would be easy prey for enemy fighters if the Soviet Union did not secure complete air superiority. The Red Army had to begin the war with a massive air attack and invasion against the enemy’s air bases. Tens of thousands of paratroopers could then be dropped to seize and control key bases and strategic sites. Any other scenario was not viable. Instead, it was Hitler who carried out a preemptive strike, and Stalin’s strategy to strike the first blow was aborted. The Soviet Union’s carefully designed plan to mount a massive air offensive followed by an assault of airborne troops had to be abandoned in the desperate rush to fight a defensive war. (Source: Ibid., pp. 77-78).

Stalin’s more than 200 submarines and the rest of his navy were ineffective at the start of the war because it was an attack fleet. Stalin’s navy was built for aggressive war and could not be used effectively in a defensive war. Entirely different ships with entirely different characteristics are needed for defense: submarine hunters, picket boats, minesweepers, and net-layers. The armament of the Soviet ships was also designed exclusively for participation in a war of aggression. While armed with powerful artillery, mine, and torpedo equipment, Soviet ships had quite weak anti-aircraft armament and defenses.

Soviet generals had planned to begin the war with a crushing surprise attack against the enemy’s air bases that annihilated his aviation. When Germany attacked first, the Soviet navy’s lack of anti-aircraft defenses was a major liability. The Soviet war effort was also hurt by the fact that all of the navy’s reserves of shells, mines, torpedoes, and ship fuel had been transported to the German borders and were quickly seized by the Germans when they invaded the Soviet Union. (Source: Ibid., pp. 128-129).

The Ammunition Commissariat was created as a separate ministry to take care exclusively of the production of ammunition. This ministry had to determine where to locate all of the new factories that would be producing shells, gunpowder, cartridges, missiles, and other weapons. If Stalin had planned to conduct a defensive war, the new ammunition factories would have been built either behind the Volga River or even farther inland in the Ural Mountains. But no defensive options were ever discussed. Since Stalin planned to conduct an offensive operation into a war-devastated and weakened Europe, all of the new ammunition factories were built near the western border regions of the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union lost almost all industry capable of producing new ammunitions at the beginning of the war. From August to November 1941, German troops took over 303 Soviet ammunition factories as well as mobilization reserves of valuable raw materials located in those factories. These factories produced 85% of all output from the Ammunition Commissariat. All of these resources went to Germany and were used against the Red Army. The Red Army also lost an unthinkable amount of artillery shells in the border regions of the Soviet Union at the start of the war. However, according to Suvorov, Stalin’s prewar potential was so great that he was able to rebuild his ammunitions factories behind the Volga River and in the Urals, and produce all the ammunitions needed to defeat the German army. (Source: Ibid., pp. 131-132).

The Soviet Union in 1941 was preparing for an offensive war against Europe. According to Suvorov, in the first half of June 1941 the Soviet 9th Army was the most powerful army in the world. The 9th Army appeared on the Romanian border on June 14, 1941, in the exact place where a year ago it had “liberated” Bessarabia. If the Soviet 9th Army had been allowed to attack Romania, Germany’s main source of oil would have been lost and Germany would have been defeated. Hitler’s attack of the Soviet Union prevented this from happening. The unjustified concentration of Soviet troops on Romanian borders presented a clear danger to Germany, and was a major reason for the German invasion of the Soviet Union. (Source: Ibid., pp. 196-197).

The effect of lend-lease aid to Stalin from the United States was also crucial in helping Stalin win the war. This lend-lease aid resulted in the expansion of Communism and the Soviet Union’s empire. American historian Sean McMeekin writes:

“The ultimate price of victory was paid by the tens of millions of involuntary subjects of Stalin’s satellite regimes in Europe and Asia, including Maoist China, along with the millions of Soviet dissidents, returned Soviet POWs, and captured war prisoners who were herded into Gulag camps from the Arctic gold and platinum mines of Vorkuta to the open-air uranium strip mines of Stavropol and Siberia. For subjects of his expanding slave empire, Stalin’s war did not end in 1945. Decades of oppression and new forms of terror were still to come.” (Source: McMeekin, Sean, Stalin’s War: A New History of World War II, New York: Basic Books, 2021, pp. 665-666).

I could go on. The Red Army did so poorly at first because it was designed for offense and had not made adequate defensive preparations.

You write: “The subject was German victims of the National Socialists. You troll with a wild off-topic accusation:”

My response: You are correct that the subject was the German victims of the National Socialists. I mentioned that the Allies mass murdered approximately 9 million Germans after World War II to show that the Allies mass murdered many more Germans than did the National Socialists.

You write: “Thanks, I’ve read your book: once in electronic text; many, many times in the large dumps of cut-and-paste spam (some up to 5,000 words) you routinely pretend is spontaneous discourse on UR.”

My response: I have always stated that most of my Unz Review responses come from my book or the previous articles I have written. I would not have the time to write such lengthy responses otherwise.

You write: “Your estimate of 9 million “mass-murdered” Germans is absurdly high, unsupported by any legitimate source. The current estimate of ethnic German deaths 1945-48 due to expulsions and forced migrations is up to 600,000; the estimate of German deaths 1945-48 due to malnutrition, exposure, and disease is up to 2 million: total deaths 2.5 to 3 million maximum, a third of your number.”

My response: I have documented in my book Germany’s War how I got my 9 million German deaths number. How did you get your estimate of 2.5 to 3 million maximum German deaths?

You write: “You seem to take the same position AJP Taylor describes in Germans after their defeat in 1918: they expected the Allies to furnish them with all comforts and support, as if there were no consequences to defeat.”

My response: I would expect the Allies not to intentionally starve the Germans to death.

Regarding the mass murder of German POWs after World War II, numerous American soldiers and officers have come forth to witness the atrocious death rate in the American and French POW camps. From low-ranking soldiers such as Martin Brech, Daniel McConnell, and Merrill W. Campbell, through middle-rank officers such as Ben H. Jackson, Frederick Siegfriedt, and Lee Berwick, to high-ranking officers such as Richard Steinbach, Henry W. Allard, James B. Mason, Charles H. Beasley, Mark Clark, and Herbert Pollack, Americans have described the lethal conditions in the American and French POW camps. All of the American eyewitness reports are extended and confirmed by the thousands of Germans who have written letters, books, and articles showing beyond reasonable doubt a high death rate in the Allied POW camps.

Regarding the mass deaths of the German expellees, no one has done the extensive research required to make a reasonable estimate of how many German expellees died after World War II. However, even many mainstream historians have estimated that approximately 2.1 million German expellees died after World War II.

Regarding the German civilian deaths after World War II, an estimated 5.7 million Germans already residing in Germany died from the starvation policies implemented by the Allies. James Bacque detailed how this 5.7 million death total is calculated:

“The population of all occupied Germany in October 1946 was 65,000,000, according to the census prepared under the ACC. The returning prisoners who were added to the population in the period October 1946-September 1950 numbered 2,600,000 (rounded), according to records in the archives of the four principal Allies. Births according to the official German statistical agency, Statistisches Bundesamt, added another 4,176,430 newcomers to Germany. The expellees arriving totaled 6,000,000. Thus, the total population in 1950 before losses would have been 77,776,430, according to the Allies themselves. Deaths officially recorded in the period 1946-50 were 3,235,539, according to the UN Yearbook and the German government. Emigration was about 600,000, according to the German government. Thus, the population found should have been 73,940,891. But the census of 1950 done by the German government under Allied supervision found only 68,230,796. There was a shortage of 5,710,095 people, according to the official Allied figures (rounded to 5,700,000).” (Source: Bacque, James, Crimes and Mercies: The Fate of German Civilians under Allied Occupation, 1944-1950, 2nd edition, Vancouver, British Columbia: Talonbooks, 2007, pp. 115-116).

Bacque’s calculations have been confirmed by Dr. Anthony B. Miller, who is a world-famous epidemiologist and head of the Department of Preventive Medicine and Biostatistics at the University of Toronto. Miller read the whole work, including the documents, and checked the statistics, which he says “confirm the validity of [Bacque’s] calculations.” Miller states: “These deaths appear to have resulted, directly or indirectly, from the semi-starvation food rations that were all that were available to the majority of the German population during this time period.”
(Source: Ibid., pp. xvii-xviii).

The German dead do not tell the entire story of the tragedy that was inflicted on Germany after World War II. Millions of German women who had been repeatedly raped had to bear the physical and psychological scars for the rest of their lives. Millions of German expellees who lost all of their real estate and most of their personal property were never compensated by the Allies. Instead, they had to live in abject poverty in Germany after the expulsion from their homes. Millions of other Germans had their property stolen or destroyed by Allied soldiers. The Allied postwar treatment of Germany is surely one of the most brutal, criminal, and unreported tragedies in world history.

So, an estimate of 9 million Germans mass murdered by the Allies after World War II is a reasonable estimate in my opinion.

You write: “Issues about German Poles were only a pretext. Hitler lays out his aims in the memo of May 23, 1939, which was recorded by Rudolf Schmundt, a man who was of unquestioned loyalty to Hitler and died as a result of the July 20, 1944, assassination attempt.”

My response: I think we have discussed this meeting before. However, I will be glad to discuss it with you again.

On May 23, 1939, a meeting was held in Hitler’s study in the new Reich Chancellery in which Hitler allegedly announced and gave the reasons for his decision to attack Poland. Among the persons present at this meeting were IMT defendants Hermann Göring, Erich Raeder, and Wilhelm Keitel. The adjutant on duty that day was Lt. Col. Rudolf Schmundt, who afterwards allegedly made a record of what was said during the meeting, certifying it with his signature as a correct record. (Source: Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression: Opinion and Judgment, Office of United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality, United States Government Printing Office, 1947, pp. 27, 30).

You are correct that Rudolf Schmundt was a loyal National Socialist who could be trusted to tell the truth about what Hitler said in this meeting. However, Schmundt was injured in the July 20, 1944 assassination attempt of Hitler, and died a few months later from his wounds. Thus, he was not able to testify at the IMT as to what was said in this meeting. The question of the authenticity of his record of this meeting remains unresolved and is highly questionable. (Source: Hoggan, David L., The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed, Costa Mesa, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1989, p. 415).

Grand Adm. Raeder, when confronted at the IMT with the Schmundt transcript, said in court:

“In my opinion, it is the most obscure document about a speech of Hitler which exists anywhere, for a large part of its statements in my opinion make no sense at all…It simply in no way reflects the character of the speech correctly.” (Source: Schultze-Rhonhof, Gerd, 1939—The War that Had Many Fathers: The Long Run-Up to the Second World War, 6th edition, Olzog Verlag GmbH, München, Germany, 2011, p. 398).

We know for certain that Poland had made major threats against Germany. Poland threatened Germany with a partial mobilization of her forces on March 23, 1939. Hundreds of thousands of Polish Army reservists were mobilized, and Hitler was warned that Poland would fight to prevent the return of Danzig to Germany. The Poles were surprised to discover that Germany did not take this challenge seriously. Hitler, who deeply desired friendship with Poland, refrained from responding to the Polish threat of war. Germany did not threaten Poland and took no precautionary military measures in response to the Polish partial mobilization. (Source: Hoggan, David L., The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed, Costa Mesa, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1989, pp. 311-312).

The situation between Germany and Poland deteriorated rapidly during the brief span of six weeks from the Polish partial mobilization of March 23, 1939, to a speech delivered by Polish Foreign Minister Józef Beck on May 5, 1939. Beck’s primary purpose in delivering his speech before the Sejm, the lower house of the Polish parliament, was to convince the Polish public and the world that he was able and willing to challenge Hitler. Beck knew that British Foreign Minister Lord Halifax had succeeded in creating a warlike atmosphere in Great Britain, and that he could go as far as he wanted without displeasing the British. Beck took an uncompromising attitude in his speech that effectively closed the door to further negotiations with Germany.

Beck made numerous false and hypocritical statements in his speech. One of the most astonishing claims in his speech was that there was nothing extraordinary about the British military guarantee to Poland. He described it as a normal step in the pursuit of friendly relations with a neighboring country. This was in sharp contrast to British diplomat Sir Alexander Cadogan’s statement to Joseph Kennedy that Britain’s guarantee to Poland was without precedent in the entire history of British foreign policy. (Source: Ibid., pp. 381, 383).

Beck ended his speech with a stirring climax that produced wild excitement in the Polish Sejm. Someone in the audience screamed loudly, “We do not need peace!” and pandemonium followed. Beck had made many Poles in the audience determined to fight Germany. This feeling resulted from their ignorance which made it impossible for them to recognize the numerous falsehoods and misstatements in Beck’s speech. Beck made the audience feel that Hitler had insulted the honor of Poland with what were quite reasonable peace proposals. The Polish Foreign Minister had effectively closed the door to further negotiations with Germany. Beck had made Germany the deadly enemy of Poland. (Source: Ibid., pp. 384, 387).

In this environment, it would have been foolish for Hitler not to have made adequate military preparations. Schmundt’s notes suggest that Hitler was envisaging the possibility of conflict with Poland and the Western Powers, but that he hoped to prevent the intervention of the Western Powers by diplomatic means if a war occurred between Germany and Poland.

Gen. Wilhelm Keitel recalled after World War II that he left the meeting of May 23rd with the firm belief that there would be no war. Joachim von Ribbentrop stated after the war that Hitler “repeatedly told me that one had to talk with military men as if war was about to break out here or there on the next day.” Most analysts would regard this as a reasonable policy concerning the relationship between political and military leaders. (Source: Ibid., pp. 415-416).

You write: “Hoggan uncritically repeats German propaganda without attempting to cross-check anything. Donald Day never found any evidence of major violence going on before the invasion of Poland. Day was barred from Poland in March 1939 because the Polish authorities saw that he was a cheerleader for the Third Reich.”

My response: David Hoggan did a massive amount of research for his book The Forced War. He even took the time to learn the Polish language so that he could read the original Polish documents. Hoggan also had a PhD in Diplomatic History from Harvard University, so he definitely had good academic credentials. If you know of a better book to read on this subject, please let me know about it.

You are correct that the Polish government banned Donald Day from reporting from Poland. This is because Day was verifying the rapidly accumulating reports of Polish persecutions of Poland’s ethnic Germany minority. However, Day did succeed in interviewing German refugees who had fled Polish persecution. In my opinion, as a long-time reporter for the Chicago Tribune, there is no reason to doubt the veracity of his reports.

You write: “Where the Polish government took prewar measures to remove Germanic populations from the border regions where they could have aided German troops, this was not at all dependent on the attitude of Britain. Nothing which the Polish government was at all determined by Britain.”

My response: I do not agree with your statements here. The book Polish Acts of Atrocity against the German Minority in Poland answers the question of why the Polish government allowed atrocities against its German minority to happen:

“The guarantee of assistance given Poland by the British government was the agent which lent impetus to Britain’s policy of encirclement. It was designed to exploit the problem of Danzig and the corridor to begin a war, desired and long-prepared by England, for the annihilation of Greater Germany. In Warsaw moderation was no longer considered necessary, and the opinion held was that matters could be safely brought to a head. England was backing this diabolical game, having guaranteed the ‘integrity’ of the Polish state. The British assurance of assistance meant that Poland was to be the battering ram of Germany’s enemies. Henceforth Poland neglected no form of provocation of Germany and, in its blindness, dreamt of ‘victorious battle at Berlin’s gates.’ Had it not been for the encouragement of the English war clique, which was stiffening Poland’s attitude toward the Reich and whose promises led Warsaw to feel safe, the Polish government would hardly have let matters develop to the point where Polish soldiers and civilians would eventually interpret the slogan to extirpate all German influence as an incitement to the murder and bestial mutilation of human beings.” (Source: Shadewalt, Hans, Polish Acts of Atrocity against the German Minority in Poland, Berlin and New York: German Library of Information, 2nd edition, 1940, pp. 75-75).

A letter to the editor on page 77 of the July/August 2025 issue of The Barnes Review mentions two additional books that support Viktor Suvorov’s thesis.

The titles of these books translated into English are Operation Barbarossa: German and Soviet Attack Plans by Walter Post and Operation Barbarossa and the Russian Historians’ Dispute by Wolfgang Strauss. The letter writer concludes: “Both offer a Revisionist look at Germany’s Operation Barbarossa, much in line with the works of Viktor Suvorov and the new wave of Russian historians.”

Soviet historian Mark Solonin states that Stalin’s date to attack Germany was planned for two weeks after the Germans attacked the Soviets.

You write: “You omitted critical content, falsely enumerated edited sentences and placed them in bogus order to support faulty conclusions, all while claiming your rendition was ‘verbatim’. Caught in fraud, now you attempt to blame it on a ridiculous cut-and-paste keyboard excuse.”

My response: My comment #337 on this discussion thread was written in response to your demand that I “prove Hitler expected an imminent Soviet attack by quoting German sources up to 22 Jun 1941.”

I begin my comment #337 by writing “Hitler indicated his belief that Stalin was planning to invade Germany in his letter to Mussolini on June 21, 1941. The following are some quotes from this letter:”

I then proceeded in comment #337 to quote seven items from this letter which indicate that Hitler was concerned about a Soviet invasion of Germany. Note that I never said here that I was quoting the entire letter.

You responded to my comment #337 by writing a lengthy comment #350 that begins by writing “Nonsense. Nothing Hitler writes to Mussolini indicates an imminent Soviet threat.”

I responded in my comment #355: “The seven items I list in my comment #337 on this discussion thread are verbatim from Hitler’s letter to Mussolini written on June 21, 1941. I did not insert any enumeration not in the original letter. If you think I did, please tell me what enumeration not in the original I inserted in my summary of Hitler’s letter. Obviously, I did not quote the entire lengthy letter, but it is apparent in this letter that Hitler was concerned about an attack from the Soviet Union some time in the near future.”

You responded to my comment #355 with a lengthy comment #374 which states: “‘Verbatim’ means exactly the same words and order as the original. Your rendition in #337 is critically incomplete, false and misleading.”

I responded in my comment #378: “I did not reproduce the entire letter from Hitler to Mussolini. What I did reproduce from this letter was done by doing Ctrl+C to copy and then Ctrl+V to paste. The sentences I reproduced in my comment #337 were done verbatim from the letter.”

You now respond in comment #391 that I have been caught in fraud. Actually, I have not been caught in a fraud. My comment #337 quoted seven items from this letter which indicate that Hitler was concerned about a Soviet invasion of Germany. Note that I never said here or anywhere else that I was quoting the entire letter. The seven items that I quote in comment #337 were taken verbatim from the original letter.

You write: “Fair warning: avoid Taylor’s ‘Course of German History’. It easily destroys ‘Germany’s War’, Barnes and Hoggan. Your tearful ‘Chains of Versailles’, for example, pales in comparison with Taylor:”

My response: As we have discussed before, you quote AJP Taylor when he writes something you agree with. When AJP Taylor writes something you don’t agree with, you call him egocentric.

You write: “What Stalin was- or was-not planning had nothing to do with the reasons for Barbarossa, Hitler’s ‘war of extermination’.”

My response: Actually, Stalin’s plan to invade Germany and all of Europe does have something to do with Barbarossa. This is why Hitler never regretted his decision to invade the Soviet Union.

Hitler had to invade the Soviet Union to prevent its takeover of Germany and all of Europe. This is why David Irving wrote about Hitler’s decision to invade the Soviet Union: “Irrevocable and terrible in its finality, the decision Adolf Hitler now took was one he never regretted, even in the jaws of ultimate defeat.” (Source: Irving, David, Hitler’s War, New York: Avon Books, 1990, p. 326).

You write: “Warmly welcomed visiting Germany in 1926, Barnes declared his intention to “clear Germany of the dishonour and fraud of the war-guilt clause of the Treaty of Versailles”, just the song his masters wanted to hear.”

My response: Harry Elmer Barnes was hardly the only historian who wanted to clear Germany of the fraud of the war-guilt clause of the Treaty of Versailles.

Few historians in postwar years believed Germany to be solely responsible for the outbreak of World War I. There were differences of opinion about the degree of responsibility borne by Germany, Great Britain, France, Russia, and other belligerent nations, but no responsible person could find Germany totally responsible for the war. Representative of impartial scholarship on the subject is the opinion of Dr. Sidney B. Fay of Harvard University. Fay concluded after an extensive study of the causes of World War I:

“Germany did not plot a European war, did not want one and made genuine, though too belated efforts to avert one…It was primarily Russia’s general mobilization, made when Germany was trying to bring Austria to a settlement, which precipitated the final catastrophe, causing Germany to mobilize and bring war…The verdict of the Versailles Treaty that Germany and her allies were responsible for the war, in view of the evidence now available, is historically unsound.” (Source: Fay, Sidney B., The Origins of the World War, New York: Macmillan, 1930, pp. 552, 554-555).

Other historians who established that Germany was not primarily responsible for causing World War I include professors Michael H. Cochran, Max Montgelas, and Georges Demartial. The Englishman Arthur Ponsonby also convincingly demonstrated that atrocity charges against the Germans were manufactured by Allied propagandists. (Source: Ponsonby, Arthur, Falsehood in Wartime, Costa Mesa, CA: Institute for Historical Review, 1991).

You write: “Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union was designed to rapidly destroy Britain’s last potential continental ally, plunder food and commodities, and to provide long-sought lebensraum. This is amply documented in contemporary German sources, which fail to mention any imminent Soviet threat in Barbarossa planning. Rezun/Suvorov is irrelevant.”

My response: Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union was also designed to preempt Stalin’s planned invasion of Germany and all of Europe. This is well documented by Soviet sources and the experience of German soldiers who invaded the Soviet Union.

Thank you, John. I will read your book. I apologize for not reading it earlier. Here it is.

https://www.unz.com/book/john_wear__germanys-war/

You write: “600,000 Germans are estimated to have been killed by Hitler and his thugs – slightly under the number killed by Allied bombing. 400,000 others were forcibly sterilized for congenital defects (including hereditary blindness) or ‘asocial’ behavior (basically anything the NS decided). Religious groups (Jehovah’s Witnesses, Confessing Christians, Catholic priests) professing antithetical belief were imprisoned, as were pacifists and ‘non-Aryans’.”

My response: The Allies mass murdered approximately 9 million Germans after the end of World War II. Please read Chapters Five, Six, and Seven of my book Germany’s War for more detailed information.

since Suvorov gained access to closed archives that David Irving never had access to, I think he is the more credible source of information as to how we know Stalin was preparing to attack Germany and all of Europe.

John, that sentence of yours pretty much sums it all up. It is an issue of CREDIBILITY.
As great as David Irving is on a range of WWII matters, Suvorov is the MOST credible on this particular matter.

And that pretty much encapsulates what you’re all about John.
You see UR readers, it is clear that in all his writings, John Wear focuses on the most credible sources.
He uses the output of those researchers that have unimpeachable integrity.

Contrast that to the questionable individuals that others are using for their WWII ‘research’.
Take for instance Avery in comment # 367 , who uses Hugh Redwald Trevor-Roper, Baron Dacre of Glanton.

That’s right UR readers, because he was a shameless sycophant of the ZOG controlled British establishment, and wrote all manner of nonsense demonising Hitler and NSDAP Germany (while simultaneously talking up the Jews and how they suffered ‘terribly’), the British made this two-bit punk of a historian into an eff’n Baron.
They did this to demonstrate how grateful they were for his contributions in falsifying WWII history.

And then we have the habitual liar Incactus, who in comment # 349 writes:

Harry Elmer Barnes was a paid shill for Wilhelmine and Nazi Germany: discredited, he consoled himself with crackpot conspiracy theories. Faithful disciple David Hoggan carried on …

The fact of the matter is that these aforementioned historians/revisionists are recognised by impartial observers as CHAMPIONS OF TRUTH.
But because what they have to say totally discredits the lies you’re telling Mr Incactus, you have to resort to mud slinging, in an effort to impugn their reputations.

Summary: Whilst I may not be commenting in this thread to any great degree, I am reading the output of the various contributors.
As I’ve said to John Wear in the past, EVERY one of his comments is worthy of an ‘Agree’ or a ‘Thanks’. In fact his collective efforts over the years are worthy of a lot more than that (think Presidential Medal of Freedom – or something comparable).

But I’m only allowed to dispense so many ‘Agrees/Thanks’ in any 8 hour period.
And seeing as I also participate extensively in other UR threads that deal with Talmudic depravity (eg: those relating to the ZOG orchestrated):

1) Murder of Charlie Kirk
2) Murder of JFK/RFK/JFK Jr
3) 9/11 False Flag
4) Covid Psyop, Anthropogenic Global Warming hoax, Holohoax and much more besides,
…. I’ve been saving those complimentary tags for other UR contributors (esp. newcomers to this webzine who, like me, are exposing ZOG malfesance.

Contrast that to the crap that Mr Incactus and his ADL employed pal Patrick ‘Shlomo’ McNally are posting in UR.
The garbage they post leaves one shaking his head – it’s just that preposterous.

Incactus in particular is an expert in the propagation of Lies by Omission.
Whilst he can post various facts from time to time (many of which he’s taken out of context), he purposely leaves out important info that doesn’t fit in with his ZOG conjured narrative.

Incactus writes in a later comment that ‘Harry Elmer Barnes was in the pay of Germany’.
That’s a mighty big assertion – an assertion that needs some mighty big substantiation.
OK then Incactus – PLEASE SHOW US THAT EVIDENCE*.
If you can’t, we’ll be satisfied with an apology where you admit you conjured it up (as you do with a great deal of the stuff you post).

If that evidence is not forthcoming in the next few days, this will be yet further proof that Incactus is a bald-faced liar.

You write: “Your summery points are very true and also infer the possibility that we are dealing here with a Zionist cabal disguised as a panzer division. Also probably on MI6/CIA payroll. This also explains the unhinged obsession with the MI6 Rezun project.”

My response: I am on nobody’s payroll. Also, why do you think Rezun is connected with MI6?

You write: “There has never been any question about the fact that Soviet war-plans up to 1941 were designed with an offensive character.”

My response: I totally agree with this statement.

You write: “It has never been disputed among historians that Soviet plans for war in the event of a German invasion aimed to swiftly halt the Wehrmacht close to the border within a few months and then advance ahead.”

My response: I do not agree with this statement. The Soviets were not positioned to quickly stop the German invasion.

Viktor Suvorov states in The Chief Culprit that both German and Soviet forces were positioned for attack on June 22, 1941. The position of the divisions of the Red Army and the German army on the border mirrored each other. The airfields of both armies were moved all the way up to the border. From the defensive point of view, this kind of deployment of troops and airfields by both armies was stupid and suicidal. Whichever army attacked first would be able to easily encircle the troops of the other army. Hitler attacked first to enable German troops to trap and encircle the best units of the Red Army. (Source: Suvorov, Viktor, The Chief Culprit: Stalin’s Grand Design to Start World War II, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2008, p. xx).

Every Soviet commander, starting with regiment level and higher, had in his safe a so-called “Red Packet,” which contained the plans for war. When Germany invaded, the commanders opened their “Red Packets,” but they did not find in them anything useful for defense. The Red Army had neither prepared for defense nor conducted any training in defensive operations. The defensive operations of the Red Army in the summer of 1941 were pure improvisation. (Source: Ibid., pp. 252-253).

Troops preparing for defense dig themselves into the ground, close off roads, establish barbwire barriers, dig anti-tank trenches, and prepare covers behind the barricades. The Red Army did none of these things. Instead, the additional Soviet divisions being sent to the western front began to hide in the border forests just like the German troops preparing for invasion. (Source: Ibid., pp. 207-217).

After the division of Poland by the Soviet Union and Germany, Soviet troops could have created a powerful barrier on the new Soviet-German border. In 1939 conditions for defense along the Soviet-German border were highly favorable: forests, rivers, swamps, few roads, and lots of time. However, instead of making the area impassable, it was quickly made more penetrable. The Red Army tore down previously existing fortifications and buried them under mounds of ground. The Soviet Union also stopped producing anti-tank and anti-aircraft cannon. The Soviet Union had huge land mine production that could have been used for defense, but after the new borders with Germany were established this production was curbed. (Source: Ibid., p. 162).

The Red Army also dismantled the security pale created earlier on the old western borders, and failed to create a new security pale on the Polish territory annexed to the Soviet Union. The Red Army in Finland learned the hard way that a security pale could ease the position of the defense and complicate the position of the aggressor. All Soviet commanders expressed their awe at the Finnish line of defense. The Soviet Union had to expend a huge amount of time, strength, resources, and blood to cross the Finnish security pale. However, the Soviet Union dismantled its security pale in 1940 because it was not interested in conducting a defensive war. (Source: Ibid., p. 165).

The Soviet Union also constructed new railroads and railroad bridges in the western border regions. Almost all railroad troops were concentrated in the western border regions. The railroad troops worked intensively to modernize old railroads and build new ones right up to the border. Simultaneously with the construction of railroads, automobile roads were built in the western regions. The Red Army was building railroads and roads from east to west, which is usually done when preparing for advance, for a quick transfer of reserves, and for further supplying the troops after they crossed the borders. All of this work was designed for offense and hurt the Soviet Union in a defensive war. When Germany attacked the Soviet Union, German troops used the roads, bridges, supplies, rails, and sectional bridges constructed by the Soviets in the western regions to aid their advance into Soviet territory. (Ibid., pp. 166-167).

The records of a conference of the Soviet High Command held in Moscow from December 23, 1940, through the evening of December 31, 1940, also indicate that the Soviet Union was planning a massive offensive against Europe. This extremely secret meeting was attended by 274 of the highest-ranking leaders of the Red Army. Most of the speakers discussed the importance of the new tactics of sudden surprise attack. Defense at the primary locations of attack was not foreseen, even theoretically. The Soviet military leaders made it clear at the conference that they had no established contemporary defense theory. Soviet military leaders also did not work on questions of defense after the conference. The goal of the Red Army was to conduct grandiose sudden offensive operations that overwhelmed the enemy on its own territory. (Source: Ibid., pp. 184-186).

There is more I could write on this subject. This is enough for now.

I write: “the British unconditional guarantee to Poland given in this speech helped create conditions that led to the beginning of World War II” and you respond: “It’s always difficult to answer “what if?” questions, but without an Allied declaration of support for Poland what would have followed would have been a German-Polish war in which the entirety of Poland would have been occupied.”

My response: I do not agree with you that without an Allied declaration of support for Poland “what would have followed would have been a German-Polish war in which the entirety of Poland would have been occupied.”

The responsibility for security measures involving the German minority in Poland rested with Interior Department Ministerial Director Waclaw Zyborski. Zyborski consented to discuss the situation on June 23, 1939, with Walther Kohnert, one of the leaders of the German minority at Bromberg. Zyborski admitted to Kohnert that the Germans of Poland were in an unenviable situation, but he was not sympathetic to their plight. Zyborski ended their lengthy conversation by stating frankly that his policy required a severe treatment of the German minority in Poland. He made it clear that it was impossible for the Germans of Poland to alleviate their hard fate. The Germans in Poland were the helpless hostages of the Polish community and the Polish state. (Source: Hoggan, David L., The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed, Costa Mesa, CA: Institute for Historical Review, 1989, pp. 388-389).

Other leaders of the German minority in Poland repeatedly appealed to the Polish government for help during this period. Sen. Hans Hasbach, the leader of the conservative German minority faction, and Dr. Rudolf Wiesner, the leader of the Young German Party, each made multiple appeals to Poland’s government to end the violence. In a futile appeal on July 6, 1939, to Premier Sławoj-Składkowski, head of Poland’s Department of Interior, Wiesner referred to the waves of public violence against the Germans at Tomaszów near Lódz, May 13-15th, at Konstantynów, May 21-22nd, and at Pabianice, June 22-23, 1939. The appeal of Wiesner produced no results. The leaders of the German political groups eventually recognized that they had no influence with Polish authorities despite their loyal attitudes toward Poland. It was “open season” on the Germans of Poland with the approval of the Polish government. (Source: Ibid).

On August 14, 1939, the Polish authorities in East Upper Silesia launched a campaign of mass arrests against the German minority. The Poles then proceeded to close and confiscate the remaining German businesses, clubs, and welfare installations. The arrested Germans were forced to march toward the interior of Poland in prisoner columns. The various German groups in Poland were frantic by this time, and they feared that the Poles would attempt the total extermination of the German minority in the event of war. Thousands of Germans were seeking to escape arrest by crossing the border into Germany. Some of the worst recent Polish atrocities included the mutilation of several Germans. The Poles were warned not to regard their German minority as helpless hostages who could be butchered with impunity. (Source: Ibid., pp. 452-453).

Rudolf Wiesner, who was the most prominent of the German minority leaders in Poland, spoke of a disaster “of inconceivable magnitude” since the early months of 1939. Wiesner claimed that the last Germans had been dismissed from their jobs without the benefit of unemployment relief, and that hunger and privation were stamped on the faces of the Germans in Poland. German welfare agencies, cooperatives, and trade associations had been closed by Polish authorities. Exceptional martial law conditions of the earlier frontier zone had been extended to include more than one-third of the territory of Poland. The mass arrests, deportations, mutilations, and beatings of the last few weeks in Poland surpassed anything which had happened before. Wiesner insisted that the German minority leaders merely desired the restoration of peace, the banishment of the specter of war, and the right to live and work in peace. Wiesner was arrested by the Poles on August 16, 1939, on suspicion of conducting espionage for Germany in Poland. (Source: Ibid., p. 463).

William Lindsay White, an American journalist, later recalled that there was no doubt among well-informed people by this time that horrible atrocities were being inflicted every day on the Germans of Poland. White said that a letter from the Polish government claiming that no persecution of the Germans in Poland was taking place had about as much validity as the civil liberties guaranteed by the 1936 constitution of the Soviet Union. (Source: Ibid., p. 554).

Donald Day, a Chicago Tribune correspondent, reported on the atrocious treatment the Poles had meted out to the ethnic Germans in Poland:

“I traveled up to the Polish corridor where the German authorities permitted me to interview the German refugees from many Polish cities and towns. The story was the same. Mass arrests and long marches along roads toward the interior of Poland. The railroads were crowded with troop movements. Those who fell by the wayside were shot. The Polish authorities seemed to have gone mad. I have been questioning people all my life and I think I know how to make deductions from the exaggerated stories told by people who have passed through harrowing personal experiences. But even with generous allowance, the situation was plenty bad. To me the war seemed only a question of hours.” (Source: Day, Donald, Onward Christian Soldiers, Newport Beach, CA: The Noontide Press, 2002, p. 56).

I could go on. I do not think that such violence by the Polish government against its German minority would have ever occurred without Britain’s unconditional guarantee to Poland.

You write: ““Verbatim” means exactly the same words and order as the original. Your rendition in #337 is critically incomplete, false and misleading.”

My response: I did not reproduce the entire letter from Hitler to Mussolini. What I did reproduce from this letter was done by doing Ctrl+C to copy and then Ctrl+V to paste. The sentences I reproduced in my comment #337 were done verbatim from the letter.

You write: “You use Taylor’s ‘Origins’ as a mainstay for ‘Germany’s War’ but completely ignore his ‘Course of German History’, the work that made his reputation.”

My response: I do use AJP Taylor’s book The Origins of the Second World War in my book Germany’s War. However, I also use numerous other sources. I would not necessarily call Taylor’s book a mainstay of my book; instead, I would call it one of many sources I use in my book.

You write: “In tens-of-thousands of words you’ve failed to prove Hitler considered any imminent Soviet threat prior to 22 Jun 1941; you’ve failed to refute multiple German sources proving Hitler attacked the USSR to rapidly destroy a ‘rotten house of cards’ and force friendless England to negotiate, and to steal foodstuffs, commodities, and lebensraum.”

My response: What I have proven is that Stalin was planning to invade Germany and all of Europe. Neither you nor anyone else has been able to refute the evidence that documents this fact.

I write: “How was Harry Elmer Barnes discredited?” and you respond: “Being in the pay of Germany, of course. Like Nipper, RCA’s canine symbol of fidelity, Barnes could faithfully hear and convey ‘His Master’s Voice’.”

My response: What is your proof that Harry Elmer Barnes was in the pay of Germany?

You write: “The question was whether Hitler attacked to preempt an imminent Soviet threat. He did not: no such threat factors in German archives. What Stalin did or did not plan is irrelevant. You’re trying too hard to salvage Hitler’s biggest blunder.”

My response: Actually, the primary question is whether or not Hitler preempted Stalin’s attack of Germany and all of Europe.

Viktor Suvorov’s book The Chief Culprit proves beyond any reasonable doubt that Stalin was planning to invade Germany and all of Europe. Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 preempted Stalin’s attack. Please see my comment #226 on this discussion thread for more details.

David Irving had an excellent website for many years. Unfortunately it no longer works very well. I don’t know, but it may have been damaged by a hacker. I learned about it in 2007 and I would often look for new posts he made, or look at some of the interesting articles or discussions on there. He would accept letters, answer them, and post them on his website.

It was in the last five years that the website was damaged and no longer worked well, but I recall a comment by David Irving on a new post he made, that he believed Victor Suvorov was correct, that the USSR planned to attack Germany, and Germany’s attack was a pre-emptive strike. That post may been made within the last five years. Unfortunately, I can no longer find the post.

But I may have found something just as good. The following is an inquiry written to David Irving.

MANY thanks for making available the memoirs of Field Marshal Keitel. In the section dealing with preparations for Operation Barbarossa [Hitler’s attack on Russia], Keitel refers to the invasion as a “preventive attack”. What’s remarkable is that the editor, Walter Görlitz, felt compelled to insert the following note at the bottom of the page: “Keitel used the phrase Präventiv-Angriff to underline his view, but the editor of this book would be more inclined to accept the view of one of the leading experts in this field, Dr. H.-A. Jacobsen, that the German attack on Russia was an unprovoked aggression.”

Do you know if Mr. Gorlitz was responsible for the cuts made to the text of the German edition?

David Hebden

David Irving replies

SO far as I know Walter Görlitz made all the cuts to the text of the Keitel memoirs himself, in the spirit of the prevailing fears of writers in Germany. He too was very pleased to see the missing passages restored in the British edition, which was republished in 2002 by Cooper Square, New York. Of course, pre-emptive strikes, as preventive attacks are now called, are no longer considered to be war crimes, evidently. This innovation comes rather too late to rehabilitate the field marshal.

———————

My comment. So, in order to avoid problems with the German authorities, up to and including jail time I assume, Mr. Görlitz felt obligated to “correct” Keitel on what motivated him, Hitler, and the others to attack the USSR.

This is the link I found:
https://fpp.co.uk/Letters/fan/Hebden200703.html

You write in comment #367: “Your non-response is to simply state Hitler invaded USSR for so-called “preemptive purposes.”? David Irving is a world-renowned expert on Hitler and WW2: you expect readers of UNZ.com to take your (or Rezun’s) word over that of David Irving? Are you serious? One would expect much better than that from someone who has written a book about WW2. Frankly, Sir, that’s pathetic.”

My response: It is not pathetic to use the book The Chief Culprit by Viktor Suvorov as a source of information as to why we know Stalin planned to invade Germany and all of Europe. The information in this book is massive and overwhelming.

My comment #226 on this discussion thread provides 44 reasons why we know Stalin was preparing to attack Germany and all of Europe. The man who goes by the name notanonymousHere responded to this comment by writing: “This post was so long as to be offensive…Amphibious tanks are a sign of stupidity, not of invasion plans. Phrasebooks of mass destruction.”

Big Z later responded to notanonymousHere’s comment: “Agree with that. It’s a usual thing from this ‘academic’ to drown everyone in his paragraphs while having very little to say. One of the panzer brigade. I’m only writing this as I’m offended too. Not.”

Patrick McNally later commented that statement number 1 in my comment #226 that the number of tanks that Stalin was sending to his western front was considerably less than 24,000 tanks. McNally may be correct about this, but I think he underestimates how many tanks Stalin was sending to the western front.

Aside from these comments, no one on this discussion thread has attempted to refute the information provided in my comment #226. All I get are comments such as Rezun is a MI6 agent, Rezun is biased and uninformed, etc. To quote you, “that’s pathetic.”

Many thousands of German soldiers wrote about the massive Soviet military buildup when they invaded the Soviet Union. Item number 43 in my comment #226 states:

German soldiers soon found out the extent of the Soviet preparedness when they invaded the Soviet Union. A prime example is German pilot Hans-Ulrich Rudel, who flew a Ju-87 and completed 2,430 battle missions. He wrote shortly after the German invasion of the Soviet Union:

“While flying over these numerous airbases and fortifications, we all had the same thought in our heads–how lucky we were to have struck first. It seemed that the Soviets were feverishly readying the groundwork for an attack on us. And which other Western country could Russia have attacked? If the Russians had completed their preparations, there would have been almost no hope of stopping them…” (Source: Suvorov, Viktor, The Chief Culprit: Stalin’s Grand Design to Start World War II, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2008, pp. 252).

Suvorov also provides the following information in his book The Chief Culprit:

Soviet soldiers and officers were issued Russian-German and Russian-Romanian phrase books as part of their preparations for an invasion of Europe. Thousands of Soviet troops did not think to get rid of this compromising evidence when they were captured in the German invasion of the Soviet Union. The Russian-German phrase books were composed very simply: a question in Russian, followed by the same question in German written in Russian letters, then in German in Latin letters. If the Soviet soldier did not know how to pronounce the needed German phrase, he could point to the corresponding lines in the book, and the Germans could read the lines themselves.

The phrases indicated that the Soviets were planning to conduct an offensive war in Europe. For example, some phrases asked: “Where is the burghermeister? Is there an observation point on the steeple?” There were no burghermeisters or steeples in the Soviet Union. These questions are relevant only if the Soviet soldiers were in Germany. Here are other examples: “Where is the fuel? Where is the garage? Where are the stores? Where is the water? Gather and bring here [so many] horses [farm animals], we will pay!” These questions and phrases would not be relevant on Soviet soil. The following phrases are also revealing: “You do not need to be afraid. The Red Army will come soon!” These phrases are not relevant for a war conducted on Soviet soil. (Source: Ibid., pp. 257-258).

This information comes from the book A Brief Russian-German Military Phrase Book for Soldiers and Junior Commanders. Suvorov did not make this up. Since there were no burghermeisters or steeples in the Soviet Union, Russian soldiers would not be given such phrases as “Where is the burghermeister? Is there an observation point on the steeple?” These phrases only make sense if the Russian soldiers were in Germany or some other European country.

Regarding David Irving versus Viktor Suvorov’s credibility, I regard both of these men as credible historians. However, Suvorov gained access to closed Soviet archives that Irving never had access to.

While a student at the Soviet Army Academy, Suvorov wrote an independent research paper titled “The Attack of Germany on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941.” Suvorov explained his interest in the subject by saying to his professors that he wanted to study how Germany prepared for the attack so that a horrible tragedy of this kind would never happen again. The topic of Suvorov’s research was approved, and he was given access to closed archives. Suvorov was extra careful not to reveal the real interest of his research. (Source: Ibid., pp. xviii-xix).

Suvorov discovered that the Soviet version of World War II history is a lie and that it conceals the Soviet Union’s responsibility for planning the start of the war. The Red Army in June 1941 was the largest, best equipped army in the history of the world. The concentration of Soviet troops on the German border was frightful. If Hitler had not invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, the Soviet Union would have easily taken over all of Europe. German intelligence correctly saw the massive concentration of Soviet forces on the German border, but it did not see all of the Soviet military preparedness. The real picture was much graver than Germany realized.

Suvorov first published his findings in English in 1990 in the book Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War? The book quickly sold out, but the publisher refused to print further editions. It quickly became apparent that the Western academic community was as reluctant as the Communists to accept Suvorov’s new interpretation of World War II. However, with the collapse of communism and the Soviet Union, Icebreaker and Suvorov’s later books sold in large quantities. Beginning in 1990, Suvorov began to receive a flood of letters from all over the world. People provided Suvorov with their unique insights and sent him copies of documents in support of his theory. Many of these insights, as well as evidence from newly published materials, are incorporated in Suvorov’s book The Chief Culprit: Stalin’s Grand Design to Start World War II.

I have read most of David Irving’s books. However, since Suvorov gained access to closed archives that David Irving never had access to, I think he is the more credible source of information as to how we know Stalin was preparing to attack Germany and all of Europe.

You write in comment #366: “btw: your references in #337 are….. Suvorov, Suvorov, Suvorov. Are you serious? The MI6 agent, who worked against his own country of USSR – a traitor — for the City of London Bankster Imperialists is your source?

My response: How do you know that Viktor Suvorov is a MI6 agent? What is your source for this statement?

You write: “…no one forced Hitler to voluntarily jump into the fight four days later.”

My response: You are making a true statement here. However, Roosevelt and his administration implemented policies that encouraged Germany to declare war on the United States.

On December 8, 1941, President Roosevelt made a speech to Congress calling for a declaration of war against Japan. Condemning the attack on Pearl Harbor as a “date which will live in infamy,” Roosevelt did not once mention Germany. Hitler’s policy of keeping incidents between the United States and Germany to a minimum seemed to have succeeded. Hitler had ignored or downplayed the numerous provocations that Roosevelt had made against Germany. Even after Roosevelt issued orders to shoot-on-sight at German submarines, Hitler had ordered his naval commanders and air force to avoid incidents that Roosevelt might use to bring America into the war. Also, since the Tripartite Pact did not obligate Germany to join Japan in a war initiated by Japan, it appeared unlikely that Hitler would declare war on the United States. (Source: Meskill, Johanna Menzel, Hitler and Japan: The Hollow Alliance, New York: 1955, p. 40).

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor surprised Hitler. Hitler had never wanted Japan to attack the United States. Germany had repeatedly urged Japan to attack Singapore and the rest of Great Britain’s Far East Empire, but Japan refused to do so. After the war, Col. Gen. Alfred Jodl said that Hitler had wanted Japan to attack Great Britain and the Soviet Union in the Far East, which would have set up a two-front war. Hitler thought Roosevelt would probably not be able to persuade the American public to go to war to defend Britain’s Asian colonies. Jodl said that Hitler had wanted in Japan “a strong new ally without a strong new enemy.” (Source: Fleming, Thomas, The New Dealers’ War: FDR and the War within World War II, New York: Basic Books, 2001, pp. 31-32).

Hitler’s decision to stay out of war with the United States was made more difficult on December 4, 1941, when the Chicago Tribune carried in huge black letters the headline: F.D.R.’s WAR PLANS! The Washington Times Herald, the largest paper in the nation’s capital, carried a similar headline. Chesly Manly, the Tribune’s Washington correspondent, revealed in his report what Roosevelt had repeatedly denied: that Roosevelt was planning to lead the United States into war against Germany. The source of Manly’s information was no less than a verbatim copy of Rainbow Five, the top-secret war plan drawn up at Roosevelt’s request by the joint board of the United States Army and Navy. Manly’s story even contained a copy of President Roosevelt’s letter ordering the preparation of the plan. (Source: Ibid., p. 1).

Rainbow Five called for the creation of a 10-million-man army, including an expeditionary force of 5 million men that would invade Europe in 1943 to defeat Germany. On December 5, 1941, the German Embassy in Washington, D.C., cabled the entire transcript of the newspaper story to Berlin. The story was reviewed and analyzed in Berlin as “the Roosevelt War Plan.” On December 6, 1941, Adm. Erich Raeder submitted a report to Hitler prepared by his staff that analyzed the Rainbow Five plan. Raeder concluded that the most important point contained in Rainbow Five was the fact that the United States would not be ready to launch a military offensive against Germany until July 1943. (Source: Ibid., pp. 1-2, 33).

On December 9, 1941, Hitler returned to Berlin from the Russian front and plunged into two days of conferences with Raeder, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, and Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring. The three advisors stressed that the Rainbow Five plan showed that the United States was determined to defeat Germany. They pointed out that Rainbow Five stated that the United States would undertake to carry on the war against Germany alone even if Russia collapsed and Britain surrendered to Germany. The three advisors leaned toward Adm. Raeder’s view that an air and U-boat offensive against both British and American ships might be risky, but that the United States was already unquestionably an enemy. (Source: Ibid., pp. 33-34).

On December 9, 1941, Roosevelt made a radio address to the nation that is seldom mentioned in the history books. In addition to numerous uncomplimentary remarks about Hitler and Nazism, Roosevelt accused Hitler of urging Japan to attack the United States. Roosevelt declared:

“We know that Germany and Japan are conducting their military and naval operations with a joint plan. Germany and Italy consider themselves at war with the United States without even bothering about a formal declaration…Your government knows Germany has been telling Japan that if Japan would attack the United States Japan would share the spoils when peace came. She was promised by Germany that if she came in she would receive control of the whole Pacific area and that means not only the Far East, but all the islands of the Pacific and also a stranglehold on the west coast of North and Central and South America. We know also that Germany and Japan are conducting their naval operations in accordance with a joint plan.” (Source: Ibid., pp. 33-34).

All of Roosevelt’s statements are obviously lies. Germany and Japan did not have a joint naval plan before Pearl Harbor, and never concocted one for the rest of the war. Germany did not have foreknowledge and certainly never encouraged Japan to attack the United States. Japan never had any ambition to attack the west coast of North, Central, or South America. Germany also never promised anything to Japan in the Far East. Germany’s power in the Far East was negligible. (Source: Meskill, Johana Menzel, Hitler and Japan: The Hollow Alliance, New York: 1955, pp. 1-47).