Is Tomorrow Hitler's? 200 Questions on the Battle of MankindKnickerbocker, H. R. (Hubert Renfro)
History
Is Tomorrow Hitler's? 200 Questions on the Battle of Mankind
Knickerbocker, H. R. (Hubert Renfro)
Europe -- Politics and government -- 1918-1945; World War, 1939-1945; World War, 1939-1945 -- United States
Finally we heard the criticism that Churchill’s decision to send troops
to Greece was a mistake, since he knew they could not hold out against
the Germans. “Political” reasons, it was said, ought not to govern
military decisions. But what is the war being fought about if not to
re-establish honor among nations? Britain was sworn to come to the
aid of Greece. Had she failed to do so, forlorn though the hope was
of immediate success, she would have lost a good part of that moral
reputation which is worth more than many army corps to her today. This
“political” decision was made in the sense of the classical definition
of politics, “that branch of ethics dealing with the ethical relations
and duties of states.”
Churchill did make one public mistake, and it was shared by hopeful
millions, when he said at the beginning of the Norwegian campaign,
“Herr Hitler has committed a grave strategic error in spreading the war
so far to the north.” The man who had almost never underestimated the
Germans did so that time.
Q. _Wasn’t that apparent error in judgment perhaps really a piece of
good-cheer propaganda for the people?_
A. I do not think so; it was a real mistake based on his own audacity,
yet who would not prefer a leadership which tries and fails to one
which does not try at all? In Churchill the British have one leader
who understands that wars are never won on the defensive, and we may
be sure that he can be depended upon to seize the first conceivable
opportunity to carry the war into Hitler’s territory. The offensive
spirit never had a more consistent exponent than Churchill, as in his
proclamation:
“We are resolved to destroy Hitler and every vestige of his Nazi
regime; from this nothing will turn us--nothing. We will never parley,
we will never negotiate with Hitler or any of his men. We shall fight
him by land, we shall fight him by sea, we shall fight him in the
air, until, with God’s help, we have rid the earth of his shadow and
liberated his peoples from the yoke.”
This eloquence of Churchill is a gift from Heaven for our side during
these terrible years, when confusion of mind is the greatest foe of
the democracies. One of the most famous sayings of Hitler, quoted
by Rauschning is: “Mental confusion, contradiction of feeling,
indecisiveness, panic; these are our weapons.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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