This is an interesting, if not comical, look at the origins of WWII.
I have not read Buchanan's book but I hear this man's commentary on politics constantly. So he said on "Late Edition" to Wolf Blitzer that Britain, had it of not declared war on Hitler, could have averted, with the rest of Europe, WWII, and the Holocaust would not have happened.
To prove his analysis is utterly ridiculous the Holocaust was already in full swing before the start of WWII, so the saving of Jewry by avoiding WWII makes no sense to me.
Joining us now from our studios in New York is Pat Buchanan. He is the author of a brand-new big entitled, “Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War.” Britain lost its empire and the West lost the world.
Pat, thanks very much for joining us.
PAT BUCHANAN, FORMER GOP PRES. CANDIDATE: Thank you, Wolf.
BLITZER: You make the case there would have been no Hitler, there would have been no World War II, there would have been no holocaust albeit in effect for Winston Churchill. What’s the point?
BUCHANAN: Well the point of this is obviously Hitler came out of World War I and the tearing apart of Germany but what I am saying is, had Britain not given an insane war guarantee to Poland and then go on the war on behalf of a Poland it could not save, I don’t think there would have been any war in Europe. I don’t think there would have been a war against the western democracy. At the very least, all the Jews of Western Europe would have survived. That’s basically one of the cases we make.
BLITZER: Here’s what you write on page 421. Let me read it to you.
“Rather than follow the wisdom of conservative men like Kennan, Eisenhower and Reagan, we began to emulate every folly of imperial Britain in her plunge from power. With all our braying about being the indispensable nation and bring them on bravado (ph), we exhibited an imperial hubris the whole world came to detest.”
You’re implying that the same mistakes that Churchill made that you suggest he made between World War I and World War II President Bush has been making now.
BUCHANAN: That’s right, Wolf. What I’m saying is this. Basically the blunders the British made in alienating allies, in pushing enemies together or rivals together and turning them into enemies, in cutting off alliances, in giving war guarantees they could not defend, the United States has been emulating itself. Just has Britain gave a foolish war guarantee to Poland it could not honor and did not honor in the end, the United States is giving war guarantees to Poland, the Baltic Republicans. We’re thinking of giving a NATO war guarantee to Ukraine and to Georgia.
Secondly, the United States is engaging in wars I think are unnecessary wars.
BLITZER: You speak specifically about the war in Iraq which you think has been a horrible blunder.
BUCHANAN: I think the war in Iraq was quite clearly an unnecessary war. Saddam Hussein did not attack us, did no threaten us, want war with us, and we went to war with him to deprive him of weapons he did not have.
BLITZER: You would agree —
BUCHANAN: It was an unnecessary war.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.BLITZER: Let me get back to the book now because we’re almost out of time. I want you to explain the notion that you have that Hitler would have never come to power, there would have been anti- Semitism, to be sure, but there wouldn’t have been the extermination of 6 million Jews. Because that’s going to cause a lot of controversy, this notion you have that, in effect, Churchill was responsible for the chain of events that led to the Holocaust.
BUCHANAN: Churchill was not — Chamberlain made the decision to give the war guarantee to Poland.
Here’s my view, Wolf. I’ve read and studied Hitler. One thing he did not want was war with the British Empire. He admired it. He respected it. He never wanted war with it. He wanted to make an ally of it. Had Chamberlain at the goading of Churchill not given a war guarantee to Poland, Britain would not have had to go to war on behalf of Poland. It’s because Britain declared on Germany that Germany came west. That’s the reason Germany had basically hostages of everybody in Western Europe from the —
BLITZER: Hitler had plans of exterminating the Jews in the ’30s, a lot earlier.
BUCHANAN: Wolf, I have not seen any plans of extermination. Hitler went genocidal after the invasion of Russia was broken down in Russia, after he declared war on the United States, and he was looking to defeat in the face. It was at that point that the conference was held, Wolf. As you know, that was in January of 1942.
BLITZER: What about all the anti-Semitic laws, all those Jews who were rounded up starting in the 30s in Germany?
BUCHANAN: Look, there’s no doubt Hitler was anti-Semitic from the time even before he wrote camp. What we’re talking about, when you mention the Holocaust, for heaven sakes, is genocide. You’re not talking about anti-Semitism. It was anti-Semitism in Poland in those years. There’s no doubt that Nuremburg laws were in 1935. They were dreadful. As a consequence, half the Jews had left Germany before November 1938. Another half fled after that. They were outside Germany with the curtain fell.
What Hitler did was a monstrous crime, Wolf. It was a war crime. Had there been no war, there would have been no holocaust in my judgment.
BLITZER: All right. Pat Buchanan has written a provocative book, “Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War.” Pat, thanks very much for joining us.
BUCHANAN: Thank you as always, Wolf.
[*]
Hitler, Churchill, and The Unnecessary War