Kelly Miller Quotes
Germany expected that at the most a day or so would see Belgian resistance broken and the dash on Paris begun. It was not safe to start such a forward rush with Belgium unconquered.
Miller, Kelly. Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights. Austin Jenkins Co., 1919.
Note that he assumes that not only will there be another World War, but he assumes that we will be on opposite sides.
The Russians had lost over 20 million of its people to German WWII hostilities. They wanted a vengeance and were willing to take the casualties that came with the invasion of Berlin and many other key cities that were heavily defended. Eisenhower and Churchill realized that this would give the Russians a very dominant military occupation of Eastern Europe and Eastern Germany. However, they did not want to take the huge casualties of all these battles. Politically, Churchill and American leaders had to explain to their right wings why Russia was involved as an equal partner in making occupation decisions about Germany.
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.
The only soldier ever so honored. Marshall was then Chief of Staff of the Army. This quotation is historically very important in that it refutes the accusation made by some FDR and New Deal enemies that Roosevelt was very naïve about the importance of capturing Berlin and ceded control over the invasion and capture of Berlin to Stalin and the Soviet Union. Marshall, one of the most upright of politicians in American history, was not a FDR apologist and few doubted his word or judgment. (Senator Joseph McCarthy and other right wingers however falsely accused him of harboring communists in the Army and working against America’s interest against Russia.
Kelly Miller was an American mathematician, sociologist, essayist, newspaper columnist, author, and an important figure in the intellectual life of black America for close to half a century. He was known as "the Bard of the Potomac".
