Sunday, April 10, 2016
RE KENNAN QUIGLEY STALIN HITLER
One really needs to read these closely, together, to get a more rounded view of how things tragically unfolded in the 20th Century.
In Russia And The West Under Lenin And Stalin, the role of the Western democracies in the rise of Hitler, while not omitted, is so glancingly dealt with that it requires Quigley's account in The Anglo-American Establishment, etc., to make more sense from all sides.
There was too great a tendency to blame Germany both for WWI and then even more for WWII, when the responsibility for this long development really lay elsewhere to a great extent. Kennan points out this glaring fact, but hardly elaborates on it, at least in this work.
See his chapter 'The Rise Of Hitler', where he mainly discusses Stalin's machinations.
This is just one of the areas where one needs to read Quigley's account to get more of the whole picture.
The tendency to blame Hitler, to call it Hitler's War was not limited to the uninformed; but even so well informed scholars as Michael Howard broadcast this image of the recent past, a situation so much the responsibility of just those leaders in the Milner Group from which post WWII intellectuals such as Sir Michael emerged. They needed to place the blame elsewhere than on themselves, where much of it rightfully lay.
FDR of course hated Germany, shared, along with Churchill, according to Kennan the view that Hitler was a replay of WWI Junker assertiveness, and thought he could make Stalin his friend. This was a horrific combination of FDR ideas.
Quigley, also, unfortunately, it seems shared FDR's and Churchill's view of post WWI Germany as still a dangerous aggressor actuated by the same upper echelon forces that had run the WWI German war machine, and also a bunch of lower class bad Germans, too. See The A-A E, pb, p 233, 234.
Only Kennan seems to have seen the deep distinction between Hitler's Nazi Party, as a lower middle class movement, and the German aristocracy that was in power in WWI.
The deep distrust between England and France was downplayed since the conflict, but certainly Britain was perfectly willing to play off against each other any continental powers necessary.
At this time, Britain viewed France (its hereditary enemy and rival) as peopled by almost as many bad Frenchmen as there were bad Germans in Germany, but no one remembers that.
In Russia And The West Under Lenin And Stalin, the role of the Western democracies in the rise of Hitler, while not omitted, is so glancingly dealt with that it requires Quigley's account in The Anglo-American Establishment, etc., to make more sense from all sides.
There was too great a tendency to blame Germany both for WWI and then even more for WWII, when the responsibility for this long development really lay elsewhere to a great extent. Kennan points out this glaring fact, but hardly elaborates on it, at least in this work.
See his chapter 'The Rise Of Hitler', where he mainly discusses Stalin's machinations.
This is just one of the areas where one needs to read Quigley's account to get more of the whole picture.
The tendency to blame Hitler, to call it Hitler's War was not limited to the uninformed; but even so well informed scholars as Michael Howard broadcast this image of the recent past, a situation so much the responsibility of just those leaders in the Milner Group from which post WWII intellectuals such as Sir Michael emerged. They needed to place the blame elsewhere than on themselves, where much of it rightfully lay.
FDR of course hated Germany, shared, along with Churchill, according to Kennan the view that Hitler was a replay of WWI Junker assertiveness, and thought he could make Stalin his friend. This was a horrific combination of FDR ideas.
Quigley, also, unfortunately, it seems shared FDR's and Churchill's view of post WWI Germany as still a dangerous aggressor actuated by the same upper echelon forces that had run the WWI German war machine, and also a bunch of lower class bad Germans, too. See The A-A E, pb, p 233, 234.
Only Kennan seems to have seen the deep distinction between Hitler's Nazi Party, as a lower middle class movement, and the German aristocracy that was in power in WWI.
The deep distrust between England and France was downplayed since the conflict, but certainly Britain was perfectly willing to play off against each other any continental powers necessary.
At this time, Britain viewed France (its hereditary enemy and rival) as peopled by almost as many bad Frenchmen as there were bad Germans in Germany, but no one remembers that.
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