Presenting the movie "Fatherland".
An interesting hypothesis:
What would the world have looked like in 1964, if the Normandy invasion had failed and Germany had defeated Britain, conquered all of Europe and forced the US to “back out” of World War II?
A movie asks: What if Hitler had won?
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SaiGirl
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Countdown to war: German Invasion of Poland
This docudrama is told from the British point of view, and just about all the actors are British.
Which makes it slightly difficult to keep track of the characters.
I recommend watching it with closed caption subtitles to clearly grasp the details.
The entire script of this movie is based on DOCUMENTARY evidence: diplomatic cables, minutes of cabinet meetings and official statements.
Here are the key points in timeline:
1) Chamberlain (Britain) capitulates by signing the "Munich Agreement" for "Peace in our time."
2) Germany militarily seizes the "sudentenland" (western Czechoslovakia) under "lebensraum" policy.
3) German troops march into Prague and swallow up the rest of Czechoslovakia.
4) Germany demands that Poland hand over the city of Danzig to the Reich
5) Britain and France try to negotiate an agreement with Stalin to defend Poland's independence, unaware of Stalin's secret negotiations with Hitler.
6) Britain and France are shocked when the "Molotov/Ribbentrop" ("Hitler/Stalin") pact is signed and announced. This establishes the division of an occupied Poland into German and Soviet sectors.
7) Soviet troops invade Poland from the east, and German troops from the west.
8) Britain and France declare war on Germany.
Of some interest is the Italian role in this.
Mussolini was not eager to support Hitler, considering Italy unprepared to provide logistical support or troops.
Following the stunning success of the Wehrmacht's blitzkrieg conquest of Poland, Mussolini threw his support behind the Reich with full commitment.
Which makes it slightly difficult to keep track of the characters.
I recommend watching it with closed caption subtitles to clearly grasp the details.
The entire script of this movie is based on DOCUMENTARY evidence: diplomatic cables, minutes of cabinet meetings and official statements.
Here are the key points in timeline:
1) Chamberlain (Britain) capitulates by signing the "Munich Agreement" for "Peace in our time."
2) Germany militarily seizes the "sudentenland" (western Czechoslovakia) under "lebensraum" policy.
3) German troops march into Prague and swallow up the rest of Czechoslovakia.
4) Germany demands that Poland hand over the city of Danzig to the Reich
5) Britain and France try to negotiate an agreement with Stalin to defend Poland's independence, unaware of Stalin's secret negotiations with Hitler.
6) Britain and France are shocked when the "Molotov/Ribbentrop" ("Hitler/Stalin") pact is signed and announced. This establishes the division of an occupied Poland into German and Soviet sectors.
7) Soviet troops invade Poland from the east, and German troops from the west.
8) Britain and France declare war on Germany.
Of some interest is the Italian role in this.
Mussolini was not eager to support Hitler, considering Italy unprepared to provide logistical support or troops.
Following the stunning success of the Wehrmacht's blitzkrieg conquest of Poland, Mussolini threw his support behind the Reich with full commitment.
-
SaiGirl
- Posts: 619
- Joined: Sun Jun 21, 2020 9:42 pm
- Location: 21075
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Re: Countdown to war: German Invasion of Poland
The "Occidental Observer" has published several “revisionist” pieces on the “betrayal” of Czechoslovakia in 1938 at Munich.
Keeping track of the players and their "plays" in this diplomatic theater may require a scorecard, since everyone seems to be flip-flopping and switching "sides" from one moment to the next.
After years of studying the 1938 Munich settlement and the subsequent "Molotov/Ribbentrop Pact" leading to the invasion of Poland, all the figures involved look like duplicitous and manipulative LIARS to me.
But the ones who seem to flip-flop the most and seem least committed to any principle or promises made, would be the French. More than anyone else they look like quivering cowards and turncoats.
Punctuated by reckless and irresponsible provocations on their part.
I don't know why anyone would ever trust them to keep any promise, after their sell-out at Munich.
It becomes obvious that Hitler viewed the French as weaklings and was convinced he could walk right over them, either militarily or diplomatically.
On the other hand, the Fuhrer still respected the mighty British Empire; he sought a long term accommodation and was desperate to avoid war with them; he even fantasized about a German-British "alliance of Aryan nations" to rule the world together.
The clear winners (and top players) in the entire Munich episode would be Hitler and Stalin, who played the game masterfully.
QUOTE
===============
Weak peoples
Of all the “weak peoples” seeking “champions”, Jews in Britain were the most generously treated by “Providence”. The Czechs and Slovaks, like the Poles and Romanians, were less fortunate. When Czechoslovakia was occupied by the Red Army in 1945 and Benes’ government, then including Gottwald’s communists, subsequently expelled its entire German population, Western reactions were markedly different from those of Churchill and his cohorts in March 1939 when Germany had subjected the remainder of Czechia to protectorate status.70 Gerhard Weinberg adds that
“In 1945, the Soviet Union annexed the easternmost portion of pre-Munich Czechoslovakia on the grounds that the people living there were akin to those in the adjacent Ukrainian SSR – the same basis on which Germany annexed what had come to be called the Sudetenland. In 1968, the army of the Soviet Union, together with units from the German Democratic Republic, Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria, occupied the remainder of Czechoslovakia. No public demand was voiced anywhere then, and to my knowledge no historian has suggested since, that the United States, Britain, France, or anyone else go to war to protect the independence of Czechoslovakia.”71
Within weeks of taking power in 1948, the communist regime of Czechoslovakia, with the Soviets’ approval, supplied crucial arms to Israel, which immediately expanded its territory and drove masses of Palestinians into flight. They and their descendants remain stateless refugees. Churchill smiled to see the “higher grade race” triumph over the “lower manifestation”.
‘Munich’ is said by its detractors to have sanctioned the ‘dismemberment’ of Czechoslovakia. Within three years of obtaining independence from the Soviet Union, Czech and Slovak politicians dismembered their conjoined state and have since lived peacefully as two distinct peoples. The Masaryk-Benes era was little less artificial than that of communist rule; the fidelity of the likes of Churchill and Lloyd to Czechoslovakia was no realer than Stalin or Litvinov’s. ‘Munich’ is not a metonym for betrayal of the weak but an object lesson in the warmongers’ craft: they disparage peace and lie about the past to justify their crimes forever after.
==============
UNQUOTE
https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2 ... m-in-1938/
Keeping track of the players and their "plays" in this diplomatic theater may require a scorecard, since everyone seems to be flip-flopping and switching "sides" from one moment to the next.
After years of studying the 1938 Munich settlement and the subsequent "Molotov/Ribbentrop Pact" leading to the invasion of Poland, all the figures involved look like duplicitous and manipulative LIARS to me.
But the ones who seem to flip-flop the most and seem least committed to any principle or promises made, would be the French. More than anyone else they look like quivering cowards and turncoats.
Punctuated by reckless and irresponsible provocations on their part.
I don't know why anyone would ever trust them to keep any promise, after their sell-out at Munich.
It becomes obvious that Hitler viewed the French as weaklings and was convinced he could walk right over them, either militarily or diplomatically.
On the other hand, the Fuhrer still respected the mighty British Empire; he sought a long term accommodation and was desperate to avoid war with them; he even fantasized about a German-British "alliance of Aryan nations" to rule the world together.
The clear winners (and top players) in the entire Munich episode would be Hitler and Stalin, who played the game masterfully.
QUOTE
===============
Weak peoples
Of all the “weak peoples” seeking “champions”, Jews in Britain were the most generously treated by “Providence”. The Czechs and Slovaks, like the Poles and Romanians, were less fortunate. When Czechoslovakia was occupied by the Red Army in 1945 and Benes’ government, then including Gottwald’s communists, subsequently expelled its entire German population, Western reactions were markedly different from those of Churchill and his cohorts in March 1939 when Germany had subjected the remainder of Czechia to protectorate status.70 Gerhard Weinberg adds that
“In 1945, the Soviet Union annexed the easternmost portion of pre-Munich Czechoslovakia on the grounds that the people living there were akin to those in the adjacent Ukrainian SSR – the same basis on which Germany annexed what had come to be called the Sudetenland. In 1968, the army of the Soviet Union, together with units from the German Democratic Republic, Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria, occupied the remainder of Czechoslovakia. No public demand was voiced anywhere then, and to my knowledge no historian has suggested since, that the United States, Britain, France, or anyone else go to war to protect the independence of Czechoslovakia.”71
Within weeks of taking power in 1948, the communist regime of Czechoslovakia, with the Soviets’ approval, supplied crucial arms to Israel, which immediately expanded its territory and drove masses of Palestinians into flight. They and their descendants remain stateless refugees. Churchill smiled to see the “higher grade race” triumph over the “lower manifestation”.
‘Munich’ is said by its detractors to have sanctioned the ‘dismemberment’ of Czechoslovakia. Within three years of obtaining independence from the Soviet Union, Czech and Slovak politicians dismembered their conjoined state and have since lived peacefully as two distinct peoples. The Masaryk-Benes era was little less artificial than that of communist rule; the fidelity of the likes of Churchill and Lloyd to Czechoslovakia was no realer than Stalin or Litvinov’s. ‘Munich’ is not a metonym for betrayal of the weak but an object lesson in the warmongers’ craft: they disparage peace and lie about the past to justify their crimes forever after.
==============
UNQUOTE
https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2 ... m-in-1938/
-
SaiGirl
- Posts: 619
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The Strasser brothers, Hitler and the NSDAP
Otto and Gregor Strasser were among the founders of the NSDAP, long before Hitler showed up.
They were both committed socialists and nationalists.
Gregor was murdered during the “Night of the Long Knives” when Hitler, Himmler, Goering and the army high command decided to “settle all family business” by a bloody purge against any remaining independent elements in the Party.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Strasser
His brother Otto was very nearly liquidated himself, but barely escaped and fled Germany.
Here’s an interesting doc on the Strasser brothers and their role in the NSDAP.
================================================
And this is Otto Strasser's autobiographical account of his own experience during the rise of the NSDAP and the "Night of the Long Knives".
https://archive.org/details/HitlerAndIO ... 9/mode/2up
They were both committed socialists and nationalists.
Gregor was murdered during the “Night of the Long Knives” when Hitler, Himmler, Goering and the army high command decided to “settle all family business” by a bloody purge against any remaining independent elements in the Party.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Strasser
His brother Otto was very nearly liquidated himself, but barely escaped and fled Germany.
Here’s an interesting doc on the Strasser brothers and their role in the NSDAP.
================================================
And this is Otto Strasser's autobiographical account of his own experience during the rise of the NSDAP and the "Night of the Long Knives".
https://archive.org/details/HitlerAndIO ... 9/mode/2up