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
It is interesting to catalogue the various words Churchill has used to
describe Hitler, and to note that he prefers the simplest descriptives,
“wicked,” “evil,” and “bad.” What other speaker could use the childish
adjective “bad” and make it so effective as did Churchill on April 27,
1941 when he said: “In February, as you may remember, _that bad man_ in
one of his raving outbursts threatened us with a terrifying increase
in numbers and activities of his U-boats....” And again on February
9: “We must all of us have been asking ourselves what is _that wicked
man_ whose crime-stained regime and system are at bay and in the toils,
what has he been preparing during these winter months?” And earlier on
October 1, 1939: “How soon victory will be gained depends upon how long
Herr Hitler and his group of _wicked men_, whose hands are stained with
blood and soiled with corruption, can keep their grip upon the docile,
unhappy German people.” Once he calls him a “cornered maniac,” and in
the same speech of November 12, 1939 says: “I have the sensation and
also the conviction that _that evil man_ over there and his cluster of
confederates are not sure of themselves as we are sure of ourselves;
that they are harassed in their guilty souls by the thought and by
the fear of an ever approaching retribution for their crimes, and for
the orgy of destruction into which they have plunged us all....” On
March 30, 1940 he refers to “Hitler’s murderous rage,” and says, “In
his frenzy, this _wicked man_ and the criminal regime which he has
conceived and erected, increasingly turn their malice upon the weak.”
Constantly recurs the simile of bloodstained, foul hands, perhaps best
in Churchill’s speech of June 12, 1941 when he said: “We can not yet
see how deliverance will come or when it will come, but nothing is more
certain than that every trace of Hitler’s footsteps, every stain of his
infected and corroding fingers will be sponged and purged and if need
be, blasted from the surface of the earth.”
The most famous of Churchill’s epigrams is the one now known by the
entire English-speaking world, about the Royal Air Force, delivered
in his speech of August 20, 1940 on “The War Situation” in the House
of Commons. I heard that speech and particularly noted the epigram,
but I cannot now certify which of the two current versions he actually
delivered. As I remember, he said, “Never in the field of human
conflict have so many owed so much to so few.” But in the collected
volume of his speeches edited by his son, Randolph, the sentence runs,
“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to
so few.” I have seen both of these versions on placards in British
stores and offices. Hansard must have the original version and it is
possible Churchill or his son may have made an amendment in the volume
of speeches.
Q. _What are Churchill’s principal interests?_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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