On the issue of "instigators" of the Second World War and "inciting"
Good day everyone. To begin with, I will give a good saying: "He who has no future looks for himself in the past." Apparently, following this dictum, last week the "sworn" friends Poland and Ukraine once again took out a thoroughly dusty skeleton from the history cabinet and loudly rattled their bones. Yes, yes, we are talking about the notorious "Declaration of Memory and Solidarity of the Seim of the Republic of Poland and the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine", in which (not for the first time) the ill-fated "Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact" is discussed.
The conclusions were expected and therefore uninteresting: the USSR was the arsonist of the Second World War, blah blah blah. As they say, swam - we know. To be honest, I did not expect this topic to cause such a violent reaction, moreover, from both sides. It would seem that this is not new, this issue has been discussed since the 80s of the last century and, logically, it should already lose its relevance. The arguments of both sides are also known. As a counterargument, the so-called "Munich Agreement", which preceded Hitler's occupation of Czechoslovakia, is usually cited. Now the passions have subsided slightly, the opponents splashed with saliva dispersed to the corners and calmed down, each remaining at his own opinion.
Allow me to throw your pebble into the quiet swamp. And for a start, I propose not to limit ourselves to 1938 and 1940, but to dig a little deeper, by June 1919. I evoke the spirit of the Treaty of Versailles! Yes, the very one, according to the articles of which the German armed forces were to be limited to a 100-thousandth ground army; compulsory military service was canceled, the bulk of the remaining navy was to be handed over to the winners, and severe restrictions were also imposed on the construction of new warships. In addition, Germany was forbidden to have many modern types of weapons - military aircraft, armored vehicles (with the exception of a small number of obsolete vehicles - armored vehicles for the needs of the police). Shit, but why did the Wehrmacht travel so dashingly across Europe? Really on bicycles? - wrote Friedrich von Paulus. We will also follow.
The result of the First World War was the collapse of four European empires. Two - the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian - collapsed completely, forever losing their pre-war borders. But the Russian and German managed to preserve their territorial integrity, albeit somewhat "losing weight": Russia finally lost Eastern Poland and Finland, Germany lost its colonies. Immediately I draw your attention to the fact that the two DOMINANT powers in Europe survived, the main opponents on the battlefields of the First World War. And if Russia survived despite the efforts of its former allies in the Entente (Civil War and intervention), then with Germany everything is more difficult. Yes, Germany was defeated, deprived of colonies, bound by the Treaty of Versailles, which prohibited the possession of armed forces and a navy. Gigantic reparations were imposed on Germany. BUT (!) Why not the Allies in the Entente, who were so afraid of the revival of Pan-Germanism, not go further and turn united Germany into a "patchwork quilt" before the Bismarck era? As they say, she died so she died. And everything is simple - in the East, the main geopolitical enemy continues to exist - Russia, and besides, with a new political and economic system alien to world capital. And Germany was saved. Preserved as a TOOL of world capital (primarily capital of Great Britain and the United States) for future expansion in Europe.
Initially, the financial aces of Great Britain and the New World are, so to speak, in a "standby mode", hoping that the USSR will not withstand devastation and hunger, aggravating the situation with a political and economic blockade, feeding anti-Soviet organizations conducting subversive activities on the territory of the USSR - in a word, a full bunch of methods, which would later be dubbed the Cold War. The turning point can be considered 1928 - 1929. In the USSR, the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy is being adopted, and the West is beginning to "pound" the world financial crisis. From that moment it becomes clear that Russia cannot be stopped without external efforts. It is from this moment that the world begins to observe political and economic processes in Germany, aiming at the coming to power of a new figure - Hitler.
Volumes have already been written about the so-called "industrial miracle" of Germany, let's leave the financial part to economists and move on to two, in my opinion, the main facts: first, Germany's refusal to pay reparations and Hitler's denunciation of the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, which prohibited Germany from having a full-fledged army and navy. Those who are foaming at the mouth screaming about the West's innocence in the formation of Hitler, I want to ask: why did France, Britain and the United States not stop Hitler at this stage? The "economic miracle" is great, the growth of industry, an increase in the standard of living - yes, as much as you like, but how does the refusal of reparations and the course towards the militarization of Germany fit in here? What did it cost the former allies in the Entente to bang their fists on the table? What could Germany oppose in March 1935 to the three most powerful world powers, albeit shaken by the world crisis? Nothing. As the saying goes, "but the king is naked." The only conclusion is that Hitler was needed for a new project of the world war. It is needed to fulfill the tasks that were not solved in the First World War: to finally subordinate the Old World to the interests of the "island" states, which at that time were the main financial powers. As a result, the "mistress of the seas" Great Britain complacently signed the Anglo-German naval agreement of 1935, already at this stage pushing into a corner the interests of its European ally France. Hitler's Kriegsmarine received "seven feet under the keel."
Now let's digress from Europe for a moment and return to our homeland. At one time (and even now, probably), the book of the defector Vladimir Rezun "Icebreaker" was extremely popular in certain circles, in which the author (in great detail, with appropriate calculations) tried to prove that Hitler was a product of Stalin. Say, Stalin carefully nurtured and nourished the Nazi regime, so that later, under the guise of a liberator, he could bring the ideals of communism to Europe on bayonets. I have only one question: was Stalin able to put pressure on Great Britain so that Hitler could break the Versailles Treaty with impunity, as a result of which Germany became the "Third Reich" with all the ensuing consequences? Isn't our Joseph Vissarionovich too powerful for 1935? The inconsistency turns out.
So, having received a blessing from the mighty of the financial world, Hitler proceeds to carry out the tasks assigned to him. Everything that happens next, up to May 1940, is perfectly coordinated with the plans of the "island" capital: the Ashluss of Austria, the occupation of Czechoslovakia, the defeat of Poland (with the full connivance of Western guarantors), the "strange" sluggish war between Germany and France and Great Britain. The picture is disturbed on May 17, 1940, when Hitler, instead of falling on the USSR through the lands of conquered Poland, suddenly breaks the Maginot Line and drives the "sponsors" into the tail and mane to the English Channel. Drives, however, very correctly, for example, practically without interfering with the evacuation of the British to the metropolis. What suddenly happened to cute Adi?
In the West, there are often "offended" statements, they say, the possessed Fuhrer was stupid and bit the hand that fed him. No, Hitler was by no means stupid and understood perfectly well that the West had prepared for him the role of a kamikaze, opening the way forward to the main forces by his own death. Therefore, he pulled to the last with the attack on the USSR.
Let's take a look at a map of Europe at the time of June 1941. Isn't it something familiar? Isn't it the same "United Europe" that we have today? True, it is much more monolithic and strong than today. With such a foothold behind his back, Hitler could well try to bargain with yesterday's "partners". And to be more accommodating, for example, to bomb England. To go East with an open front in the West was madness. Does Hitler look like a madman? I would venture to suggest that Hess's flight to England in May 1941 was the last attempt to agree on the curtailment of hostilities in the West to untie hands in the East. Hitler demanded LEGAL guarantees of immunity, which could only be obtained by the conclusion of peace. The result is known. I think the maximum that Hitler managed to achieve was some verbal assurances that the war in the West would not go into an active phase. The situation, which is called "Shah" - "sponsors" are pressing from the West, the USSR is gaining power in the East. There is only one way out - to strike immediately, until the rearmament and training of the Red Army is complete.
They may object to me - what prevented Hitler from giving a damn about the agreements with the West and, having united with the USSR, to set up a united front in Europe, especially having in his hands the notorious Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. I will try to answer. If a political leader is not independent from the very beginning, if he is made, his “creators” will always have levers of pressure, up to and including physical elimination. Hitler did not come to power, he was BROUGHTED like a bull to the slaughter. In the resulting situation, Hitler had only one hope - to overthrow the USSR with a blitzkrieg and, relying on the seized resources of Russia, to try to resist the pressure of the "partners". Maybe everything turned out like that - BUT (!) Yesterday's sponsors announce economic support for the USSR (which means that there will be no victory with little blood), this is followed by Pearl Harbor and the entry of the United States into the war. ALL! From that moment on, the Third Reich was doomed. Even with the victory over the USSR, Hitler would not have been able to outplay the two most powerful financial powers in the world.
History has no subjunctive mood, but let's imagine that the blitzkrieg was a success. The main forces of the Wehrmacht are beaten and exhausted, stretched out in the vastness of Russia. What's next? And then again Operation Overlord, the landing of Anglo-American troops in Europe. Why? Because the US and Great Britain are still in a STATE OF WAR with Germany. And Europe is full of pro-Hitler regimes allied with Germany and, as a result, also subject to defeat and occupation by the liberators. Everything is more than logical. Verbal guarantees that Hitler allegedly received? Don't be ridiculous, everyone knows the price of a capitalist's word. In flat language, Adolf was "bred like a sucker." Did he know about this when he sat down in the chair of the Reich Chancellor? Perhaps. Could resist it? Having on hand a bunch of unpaid bills from Anglo-American capital - no.
I will say a seditious thing now, but in my personal opinion - Hitler is a RANDOM figure in pre-war politics. If he had not been so charismatic, so odious, so obsessed with power, there would have been a bunch of other contenders in his place. There were few parties and political leaders in pre-war Germany? But Hitler, with his crazy ideas of racial superiority, with his odiousness, with his policies of mass terror, was the most attractive. Why? Because it's not a pity to shoot a mad dog to the applause of the audience present. Here, as they say, the worse the better. So everything was planned perfectly, but what a shame - the USSR resisted. And the West urgently had to rebuild to accommodate such an unexpected ally. The result, in fact, was the Tehran Conference of 1943, when it finally became clear that a turning point in the war had come, Soviet troops would not stop at the USSR border and the Western "allies" urgently need to prepare a landing in Europe in order to snatch at least a part of the victory pie.
After the war, many were naively surprised by the sharp cooling of relations between the former allies. If we take everything that has been said above as an axiom, there is nothing strange about it. In modern terms - if not plan "A", then plan - "B". By and large, the "island" capital, albeit partially, but achieved its goals, establishing itself as a hegemon in the Old World. This process continues now. Look closely to see if there is a new Hitler on the horizon?
