Prussianism's final act

Churchill's admirers seem to assume that it is in the regular course of ; nature, a thing calling for no particular explanation, that a nation like ' Britain should gain its most complete military victory and simultaneously find itself in the most dangerous position in its history.

But there exists by now a large body of evidence and expert opinion to the effect that the practical defeat of England in the Second World War is largely traceable to Churchill's decisions.

The root of the fateful error was Churchill's famous "single-mindedness," a not especially valuable trait in those dealing with complex issues, and certainly not in someone underaking to shape world history. When his secretary questioned him, inJune, 1941, on the decision to give all-out aid to Stalin, Churchill replied:"I have only one aim in life, the defeat of Hitler, and this makes thingsvery simple for me."

In February, 1943, Franco transmitted to Churchill a memorandum warning of the dangerous spread of Russian power on the Continent. Churchill responded by ridiculing Franco's fears, adding: "I venture to prophesy that, after the war, England will be the greatest military Power in Europe. I am sure that England's influence will bestonger m Europe than it has ever been since the days of the fall of Napoleon."

This fantasy of perpetual and overwelming British power,then, was the foundation of of Churchill's wartime policies. As LiddellHart has said: "Britains's leader was too excited by the battle to lookahead, and see the inevitable consequence of the smashing victory forwhich he thirsted. It makes no sense."

The most direct expression of the demand for total, smashing victorywas Roosevelt's policy, from early 1943 on, of exacting unconditonal surrender from Germany, Italy and Japan (the demand was afterwards dropped in Italy's case). When Roosevelt made the announcement at Casablanca, Churchill's sycophantic reaction was to look thoughtful, grinand then say: "Perfect! And I can just see how Goebbels and the rest of'em'll squeal! " (In fact, Goebbels considered the slogan a godsend, since it identified the German State with the Nazi regime.)

The doctrine of unconditional surrender necessarily led to Communist control of EastCentral Europe and the Balkans, and of Manchuria and North Korea.

After it had begun to work its inevitable effects, Churchill desperately tried to block them-this, ironically, is another cause for his high reputeamong conservatives-by pushing for invasion by Anglo-American forces of the Balkins and the Danube basin (the famous "soft underbelly ofEuropev-the Italian campaign showed that concept up for the idiocy itwas).

To pose a fairly basic question: what actually did Churchill believe he was fighting against in the Second World War? Was it a crusade against the diabolical Hitler of the death-camps and the medical experiments?This later, more sophisticated view of what World War II was about played no role at all in Churchill's thinking.

Instead, it was a question inhis mind of a "gangster" regime threatening the "liberties of Europe"(that is, the right to rule of the various parasitic regimes in the individual countries), and, equally, of-Prussian militarism! "The core of Germanyis Prussia. There is the source of the pestilence . . . . Nazi tyranny andPrussian militarism are the two main elements in German life which must be absolutely destroyed," he proclaimed.

The Allies were battlingthe same mad Junker dream of world conquest, he went or. to say, whichhad "twice within our lifetime, and three times counting that of our fathers . . plunged the world into their wars of expansion and aggression"

This is a serious man? If his words are to be believed, Churchill's interpretation of the great epic of World War I was the one ground out by some bored French press secretarty in the Washington Embassy. Forget about a tyrant and "blood-stained usurper" (as John Stuart Mill calledhim) named Napoleon III, who was, equally with Bismarck, responsible for the Franco-Prussian War.

Forget about the Tsarist Russian imperialists and their French allies who, more than anyone else, brought about World War I. Wars are caused by Prussians, and this war is no different from any other. Thus, according to Churchill, the Second World War was no singular confrontation with the hair-raisingly demonic,(...).

Naturally, with this prespective, Churchill could have no sympathywith or appreciation for the heroes of the German opposition to Hitler. Even the Tory publicist, Constantine FitzGibbon, is compleased to say that, after the officers' plot of July 20, 1944, "Churchill in the House ofCommons exactly echoed Goebbels's speech about the conspirators, describing them as a small clique of officers and expressing a certain satisfaction that 'dog eat dog.' "

Churchill's fanatical-really,brainless-anti-Germanism blinded him to the possibility that a Germany run by Beck and Goerdeler might conceivably be more desirable from aWestern point of view than one controlled either by Hitler or Stalin.

And' as for Prussianism, let this be said: the Prussina officer class (those mad / dogs, infinitely worse, of course, than the products of Sandhurst, St. Cyrand West Point) no longer exists, and Prussia-which, after all, was Humboldt as well as Hegel-now is not even a name on a map.

But Prussianism's final act was the attempt to kill Hitler and to salvage something of the honor of Germany-a not unworthy way to leave, for the last time, the stage of history." Ralph Raico