Hitler claimed that Czechoslovakia was an artificial, unviable state created by the Allied powers after World War 1. He was proved correct in the early 90s when Slovaks voted to separate from what is now called the Czechia. The language and history of Slovakia is different from Czechia, and the union between the two peoples was a shot gun marriage.
Hitler also maintained that the ethnic Germans in the Sudetenland (3 million) were persecuted by the Czechoslovakian government. This claim was also true. As was said in the NY Times:
Were Sudeten Germans persecuted?
Before the war, the Sudeten Germans were persecuted by the Czechs, not physically but psychologically. German jobs in civil service were given to Czechs. No school meals were served in German schools, only in Czech schools.
Czech animosity was revealed after the war as well, when those 3 million ethnic Germans were expelled and their property confiscated. By comparison, what happened to Japanese Americans and Japanese Canadians during the war was a picnic.
This side of history that was not taught in colleges and universities, certainly not in my European history classes. Instead, the official narrative that claims of persecution of Germans were false and the republic of Czechoslovakia was democratic and exemplary. The Czechs were victims and the dismemberment of the Czechosovakian republic a tragedy and outrage. A similarly simplistic and distorted narrative was applied to Danzig.
My history prof was right when he said that “He who follows closely on the heels of history gets kicked in the face.” Typically, it takes decades before the truth to break through the suppression of the facts. There is always at least two sides of a story, and if you want offset the conventional narrative put out by court historians with some inconvenient truths, I would suggest that you read the following:
- The Origins of the Second World War, by J.P.Taylor
- Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War, by Pat Buchanan
- The Bad War: the Truth NEVER Taught About World War II, by M.S. King
- Churchill’s Deception: The Dark Secret That Destroyed Nazi Germany, by Louis C. Kilzer
- The Genocide of the Germans in Poland—1939
Anything on the subject by Ron Unz and Paul Craig
- https://www.unz.com/runz/why-everything-you-know-about-world-war-ii-is-wrong/#question-1-hitler
- https://www.unz.com/runz/more-falsehoods-of-world-war-ii/#the-many-falsehoods-of-the-second-world-war
- https://www.unz.com/proberts/the-lies-about-world-war-ii
The 6 year war in Europe seventy years ago was not between black and white, but between shades of gray. For my money, Stalin’s dark shade of gray was a close second to Hitler’s.
Barbarossa was a pre-emptive strike against a Soviet invasion that was long in the works. It was not a conventional military conflict, but a war of ethnic cleansing and annihilation. The scale of savagery and brutality was beyond anything seen in human history. Thousands of books and films have documented Nazi crimes and Hitler’s mendacity. But the Stalinist regime has not been subject to equivalent attention. Why? Many of the answers are obvious, but politically fatal if provided. But this should come as no surprise, because the debate between contending parties is seldom conducted on an even playing field, assuming that a debate is able to take place. This applies not only to questions in World War 11, but across a broad spectrum of concerns like climate change, immigration, and anti-Covid measures, where millions of ordinary people were robbed of the opportunity make an informed medical decision because thousands of highly credentialed critics were purposely denied a platform. My political enemies do not want a debate because they can’t risk losing it. So they label my views “harmful (or hateful) misinformation” and afford themselves a rationalization for tyranny.
Dictators today don’t need to screw with ballot boxes to rig elections. All they need do, with the help of Big Tech, is to deny the opposition, or the public, access to information. With the field all to themselves, they can shape, mislead, and instil fear at will. ( cf. Jacob Siegel, “The great disinformation hoax“).
The result is the creation of indoctrinated herd animals gripped by fear and immune to logic or reason. This is plainly evident. Yesterday I saw two young adults, one riding a bicycle and another walking alone on a deserted street, wearing cloth masks. There is no greater testament than that to the potency of lies and propaganda.
Objective journalism is dead and our democracy a sham. This is why the uncivil Civil War that we find ourselves end, will likely end in bloodshed. As in the Second World War, this will be a fight between shades of grey. If it is any consolation, if I have to kill you, I will do so with extreme reluctance.
One warning. Should you decide to switch course and pursue independent research and God forbid, think for yourself, you will likely find yourself unable to talk to friends or relatives. And if you are so foolish as to impart your findings, you may face permanent ostracism. It is common fate for truth seekers.
I prefer to follow Vaclav Havel’s prescription. Live in truth. And fuck the Communists.
