Milos Forman Quotes
You know what happened, you know, in 1938: France, England, you know, just sold out Czechoslovakia to Hitler.
Forman, Milos. Interview. Cold War documentary series. CNN, 1998.
In 1938 Germany had rearmed and resumed its aggressive designs of expansion. Hitler wanted the Sudetenland part of Czechoslovakia and threatened an invasion of that country. England had France had a treaty obligation to militarily support Czechoslovakia if it were attacked. British Prime minister Neville Chamberlain and the French were desperately trying to avoid war, not realizing that with Hitler, that position was the very thing that would bring on war. So they agreed to Hitler’s demand and allowed Czechoslovakia to be partitioned and the Sudetenland was annexed to Germany. This craven appeasement emboldened Hitler who then decided to conquer all of Europe as he had no serious opposition from France and England—the two powers that might have stopped him. (At the time, the French had a larger army than the Germans.)
In addition to the men who feared communism so much that they ignored the then greater menace of Fascism, there was also a small but influential pro Fascist influence in England which included the King who was forced to abdicate as The Duke of Windsor.
“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.
The reference to Munich was to the famous appeasement of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. See {585941}.
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.
The “fool” was Neville Chamberlain, 1869-1940, the British Prime Minister who refused to stand up to Hitler and instead negotiated a peace pact, returned home declaring that he had preserved peace. (See {585941}.) Then Hitler invaded more of Europe and WWII was begun. Ford was a Hitler admirer and pro-German (Hitler supported him for the American Presidency--{586988}—and awarded him a medal) but he thought that England had bungled the negotiations by sending someone who was very weak. In this sense his views were the same as most who were anti-Hitler.
Although Churchill, FDR, and a few other world leaders also recognized this reality, most people, even in America and Europe were not yet knowledgeable about the danger of Hitler and Nazi Germany. What is fascinating is that a theoretical scientists—one whose work had little to do with reality could be that perspicacious to identify major political trends. But Einstein was not only one of the world’s great scientific thinkers but he was a very sophisticated political and philosophical thinker.
After a reception given by Lady Astor, Channon wrote in his diary that the “Cliveden Set” {598323} would be criticized because it was in favor of the policy of appeasement. The name came from the seat of Lord and Lady Astor, who were both supporters of the policy. To some the policy was seen as pro-Hitler, but Channon saw it as reasonable and in concert with Neville Chamberlain’s views. Even so, Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement was very controversial. This very policy prevented early Allied involvement in World War II and therefore gave Hitler time to buildup the German military while invading much of Eastern Europe.
In this case, the Speaker of the House attacked the President of his own party for being willing to conduct disarmament discussions with the Russians. He implied that the outcome could be the appeasement of the Russians just as British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain appeased Hitler in 1938 in Munich, giving the German Fuhrer the “green light” to take over Europe. The Conservative Caucus went even further and explicitly called it “appeasement”. Reagan however always talked about military strength and power, and provided plenty of money for the military and weapons a few of which were boondoggles but he was a very cautious American president in authorizing military force. And he not only was willing to discuss arms control and reductions and enter into treaties for disarmament, much to the distress of the hawks of his own party. Few American Presidents have so well balanced the use of diplomacy with the threat of military force as well as Reagan.
Jan Tomáš "Miloš" Forman was a Czech-American film director, screenwriter, actor, and professor who rose to fame in his native Czechoslovakia before immigrating to the United States in 1968.
