Josef Joffe Quotes
During the war [WWII] Hitler was de Gaulle’s enemy across the Channel, Churchill the enemy next door.
De Gaulle was a very difficult ally. He was ashamed that so many of his countrymen collaborated with the German invaders including fighting against the allies and the collapse of the French Army which, although it was larger than the German invader, had exhibited much cowardice. His way of dealing with this shame was to exaggerate the positive role that the loyal French and the serious Free French Fighters and to deny the extent of the negative behavior. He was always demanding that the small Free French Army be included in all military operations, and when successful, they be given equal credit along with the British, Americans, and Russians even though the French only contributed a tiny proportion of the effort. De Gaull’s ego, personal and national was enormous and Churchill had just as great a national ego. Hence for De Gaulle, Churchill was a kind of enemy. The “Channel” referred to the English Channel.
Josef Joffe, Editor and Publisher, Die Zeit, Germany, “Charles in Charge”, New York Times Book Review, August 19, 2012
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Hopkins was a social worker with no military of political experience. But the President trusted him implicitly. Most American military officers and Ambassador to England Joseph P. Kennedy, a Nazi sympathizer & father of JFK, believed that England could not stand up to Hitler. Any military aid we gave England would fall into the hands of the Germans. Everyone was shocked when Roosevelt sent Hopkins to England to make a military recommendation. To impress Hopkins with something he thought Hopkins would be interested in, Churchill led a tour of workers cottages built by the government. Hopkins surprised Churchill and his aids who would never forget this statement & then asked to see the military facilities. Hopkins distressed the American military by recommending that Britain could hold out against invasion if they received military aid. Despite the contrary military advice, FDR accepted Hopkins’ recommendations, and the rest is history. He had been right and much of the military wrong.
Leval was an appeaser and a collaborator with the Nazi’s. He led the government in name but the Germans really controlled the country. His actions killed tens of thousands of French men and women by turning them over to the Germans. After the Germans were defeated in WWII, Leval was shot as a traitor by the Free French forces. See {587231}, {587228} and {587230}.
The general was replacing George S. Patton as commander of the Third Army. Patton had opposed the deNazification policy of the allies and caused a great deal of public relations difficulty for the army command and the administration, as reporters would frequently print his views. Truscott was one of Patton’s loyal assistants. The minute he took over, the press wanted to find out if his views were the same as his former boss regarding the Nazis. They were quite different. Reporters had no story.
Some scholars look back at the allied bombing of German Cities in WWII with criticism that it was morally improper to bomb populated cities, and that the use of the adjective “exterminating” indicated that Churchill was more interested in killing Germans than strategic victory. This revisionist history has two failings. First, the Germans had already bombed Coventry, London and other civilian targets in England as well as cities in Holland, Poland and other countries killing many civilians. As a result, under the rules of war, Germany was no longer entitled to protection for their cities. Further, Hamburg and other targets were manufacturing sites of war material and as such lost the protection anyway. Even Dresden, which had very little war manufacturing was the main location for R&R of German Officers and by their military presence in the city converted it into a legitimate target. FDR agreed with Churchill, that the bombing was a good strategy to cause Hitler to fall as they thought the public would rebel. They were wrong however and his grip on the population through the Gestapo and the military was so strong that, it took a land invasion and occupation to put an end to Hitler. However, the devastating bombing all but crippled the German weapons development and deployment. For example. The Germans had developed the Jet Airplane Engine and actually put a few in the fight at the end if the war. Without the bombing, they would have had many more and countered the allied air supremacy. However, it is also true that Churchill and many Englishmen and some Americans believed that the English were morally entitled to retaliation for the innocent civilians killed with the German bombing of civilian targets.
Leval was an appeaser and a collaborator with the Nazi’s. He led the government in name but the Germans really controlled the country. His actions killed tens of thousands of French men and women by turning them over to the Germans. After the Germans were defeated in WWII, Leval was shot as a traitor by the Free French forces.
The allies had differences in desirable strategy alternatives. Russia was facing the German Army on its Eastern front and causing huge German casualties but were paying for them in large loss of Russian life—civilian and military (The Russians suffered 22 million deaths as a result of WWII.) Stalin wanted to open a second front in France which would force the Germans to move some divisions from the Russian front, thereby relieving some of the pressure.
Josef Joffe is publisher-editor of Die Zeit, a weekly German newspaper. His second career has been in academia. Appointed Senior Fellow of Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies in 2007 (a faculty position), he is also the Marc and Anita Abramowitz Fellow in International Relations at the Hoover Institution and a courtesy professor of political science at Stanford University. Since 1999, he has been an associate of the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University.
