Expert: Michel Cahier - 3/21/2009

Question
QUESTION: I think England played the Soviet Union against Germany from the beginning. That's why England never made an alliance with the Soviet Union. So, was it a blunder on Germany's part to attack Russia before finishing the war in Europe, especially with England? England was alone for about a year after France fell in 1940.

ANSWER: Hi Matt

Once more we have some conjecture rather than an answer based on facts and history. Having said that I like this question because it is the big question : "what if Hitler had not attacked Russia before he had finished off the Brits?"

The problem is that he tried to eliminate the British threat but he failed. Was it a blunder to attack Russia after this failure ? yes certainly and his Generals had warned  him not to do so. but he was full of contempt for the Slavs and full of hatred for the "Reds" and imagined that the Soviet regime would collapse at the first onslaught.

He completely underestimated 1) the patriotism of the Russian people  2) the determination of the Soviets  3) the toughness of Stalin who after a moment of panic in 1941  regained some composure and determination to win the war at all costs. Stalin was a tougher cookie than Hitler. Hitler was an ideologue turned  crazy, Stalin was a son of a b... turned...Czar and he was extremely intelligent, cultivated and matter of facts whereas Hitler could barely write, had the culture of a delusional self-taught man and was carried away by his prejudices, his dreams and his hatreds.

England took effectively the bet that both regimes - the Nazi and the Soviet- would be at each other throat very soon and Churchill refused to share the world with Hitler or to get into an alliance with Stalin : let the bullies kill each other, he thought. However Churchill judged with reason or not -it is a matter of individual judgment- that the Nazi regime was much more perverse and dangerous than the Soviet regime and he considered that he would be better off fighting the war with the help of the Russians.

I personally think both regimes were evil but than the Nazi was a total abomination for the individual whereas the Communist regime suffered most from the devious personality of Stalin than from its own weaknesses. It is probably what Churchill was thinking as well. Note that as soon as the world was rid of Nazism Churchill warned that Communism had to be dealt with but he was largely ignored.

In conclusion, I think that Hitler was a loser as of the start of the war : 1)he could not win against hundred of millions of Russians led by a tyrant ready to kill anybody who would not fight to the death 2)
he misjudged the determination of the Brits and the iron will of  Churchill 3) after he lost the battle of England in 1941 he gave up the fight whereas the continuation of the onslaught on Britain could  have turned the tide of the war and he went to Russia where the cost of war was 100 times superior to the cost of the Battle of England ; it was a very unwise decision  4) Hitler was blinded by his prejudices and his military strategy obeyed more to his prejudices than to a rational and cold analysis of the situation ; Stalin masterminded him in this respect.

The truth is that you can win a war only if you have a just motive to start it.



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QUESTION: How did Hitler get so many individuals and industrialists to provide financing during the 1930's? What about him motivated these people to help support him?

I was reading that George W. Bush's grandfather worked had a rather high position in a bank that helped finance the Nazi regime. Anything to that?

Thank you very much

ANSWER: Money has no odor but money does not smell either. In history money has always played a dubious role in the financing of perverse or corrupt regimes. You do not have to look much back to get convinced of it : Europe and the USA financed the Saddam Hussein regime for decades because they  thought that it was a lesser evil and a factor of stability in the Middle East. That he killed thousands of opponents (Kurds and non-Kurds) was not a problem for the financiers and even the nations who helped  him.

It was exactly the same thing with Hitler and the Nazis. Europe and the USA helped  him to finance the construction of Germany after WW1 and Wall St. particularly lent her millions of dollars to rebuild a powerful army to the dismay of the French. Nobody seemed to care about the thousands of opponents put into concentration camps and the anti-semitic policies that were carried  out as of 1933.

Today the whole Nazi regime appears monstrous to everybody or almost but then it was for most people a sound reaction to the real threats that were  Marxism, Communism, Soviet Union and the destruction of  Christian values. In this respect it was almost a  duty to finance the crusade of the Nazis against the Communists. The fate of the  poor  Jews was a concern to nobody considering that 1) post WW1 Europe was largely anti-semitic 2) many people including the Church thought that Communism was spread out initially by  Jewish intelligentsia 3) So the elite of the Western world had a tendency to believe they were giving to the Marxist Jews their come-uppance.

It is only at the end of the war when the Allies discovered the horror of the concentration camps, the extermination of millions, the systematic murder of innocent people and the lies of the Nazis to their own people that the Western world began to realize how blind it had been and what terrible mistake it was to finance Hitler in the 30s. But it was a bit late.

If you want more about all this  I advise  you to read the chapters of my site devoted to this question by going to the following URL addresses : 1) http://www.schikelgruber.net/wallstB.html 2)http://www.schikelgruber.net/usupporter.html

Good reading

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QUESTION: Would you argue with Patton's assessment that making him wait for Monty and allowing the German army to excape back into Germany through the Falaise Gap was a major mistake on Ike's part. Allowing the German's to regroup and come back in the cold of winter at the Battle of The Bulge cost 19,000 American lives.

Ike seemed to how Political motivations even before the war was done. Did Ike actually see Patton as a threat politically after the war?  

Answer
Yes it was a major mistake but as I told you Ike did not trust  Patton and as you said he saw him as a rival politically and strategically. The Germans lost the initiative, escaped back to Germany but the decision to wait for Montgomery was a political one rather than a military one. The British Marshall was extremely susceptible and selfish and during the campaign of Normandy had constantly complained to the Americans about their precipitation in the conduct of the war.
So during the Bulge battle Ike decided to listen to Monty and have the peace of mind that was necessary to do his business.

The Battle of the Bulge was a very costly battle for the Allies but it was a major bluff by the Germans and  Skorzeny's audacious and bold attempt came to a huge shock to the Allies. However it might have been very costly to the Americans but it was a desperate attempt to push back once more the Allies to the sea as it has been done with the Brits in 1940. I do not think it could have worked even if the Germans had more troops, more material and more gasoline. The war was lost and a success at the Bulge would have only prolonged the war and allowed the Russians to come further west in their march to victory.