Michael Korda Quotes
In 1918, Germany suffered the ghastly consequences of defeat; France suffered those of victory, the price of which was to divide and embitter French politics and culture and lead to its defeat in 1940.
Korda, Michael. Alone: Britain, Churchill, and Dunkirk: Defeat Into Victory. W. W. Norton & Company, 2017.
since the end of WWI The railroads were nationalized for WWI and he ran them all as a government official
Germany had just attacked Russia with whom it had a treaty. For a while, Hitler paid little attention to Italy and just gave their “ally” orders and instructions. Italian public opinion was concerned about the same question. See {627973} .
“Lord Haw Haw” was the name that he used in his propaganda broadcasts from Germany to England. Despite the fact that the broadcasts were anti-British and pro German, many in Britain listened to him regularly. He was very witty and many of his criticisms of British society were views held by many patriots in Britain. As pure entertainment, he was better than most of the BBC broadcasts during WWII. At the end of the war, Joyce was captured, tried and executed for treason.
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.
Wilson had asked him to give more consideration to the German point of view in World War I peace negotiations.
Note that he assumes that not only will there be another World War, but he assumes that we will be on opposite sides.
This illustrates one of the reasons that the Israeli Arab conflict has been unsolvable over the years. A thousand years ago, the Arabs were a leading intellectual and military power in the world. The rest of the world has moved ahead and they have actually retrogressed. So the Arabs seek dignity which is very elusive. They have never wanted to negotiate terms with Israel when they have been weak and feel defeated. So the pattern has been that they feel they cannot negotiate for justice as they are too week. So periodically they attack Israel which has always defeated them and hoped that after the Arab defeat, permanent negotiations for peace could take place. But the Arabs were feeling too weak. So they just repeated all their extreme demands. After a few years, they would try another attack, lose again and the cycle would repeat. The Israelis fear that if the Arabs every won a war, the Arab moderates might be willing to reasonably negotiate, the extremists would want to continue the fighting and “drive the Israelis into the sea” as they have so often threatened.
The Germans pretended to maintain the treaty and when the French totally evacuated the Rhineland, Hitler started his preparation for WWII and a little later invaded France. Clemenceau had been snookered.
She, like her husband and many of the America Firsters, believed that Hitler should be allowed to overrun Europe and Russia. See {613688}. The America First group was a pro-fascist organization who supported the axis powers until they declared war on the United States. Even then, there were some Nazi sympathizers who were anti-immigrant, racist and anti-Semitic in addition to being fascists. Both of the Lindberghs were America Firsters
In 1918 the Treaty of Versailles—peace treaty ending WWI—was signed. Many Germans felt that their defeat in WWI forced them to sign the treaty which weakened Germany and assured that they would be a 2nd rate power thereafter. After that Germans blamed every negative aspect of their government, economy and society on the treaty that was “forced” on them. Nazism was a consequence of these feelings, and the Nazis adopted policies and practices to get around their anti-military obligations and have a strong government so that the allies could not enforce the treaty obligations on Germany.
The railroads were nationalized for WWI and he ran them all as a government official. There have been political situations like this one where public opinion was so intense and extreme that any action that satisfied public opinion would have very negative aspects and/or be unrealistic or impossible while realistic solutions are unacceptable to public opinion. Usually, the reaction of the politicians is to punt and simply not deal with the issue or problem but claim that they are seeking a solution.
This was 6 years after the German defeat in WWI. That Dream helped propel Hitler to power and the German aggression of WWII.
Michael Korda is an English-born writer and novelist who was editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster in New York City.
