Are there any documentaries about WWII that acknowledge the fact that Nazi Germany started the was together with Soviet Union, fighting side by side and that both regimes were just as brutal and that Soviet alliance with the West proves that the war wasn't a simple good vs evil case?
It seems that most modern documentaries are ashamed of that and usually ignore anything involving USSR before 1941 or talk about some bullshit "lesser evil."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0E_Ewe8g2Y
Based on the book '1939: The War that had many Fathers' by Schultze-Ronhof, a recommended read too.
>Ronhof talking about the varous diplomat records leading up to WW2, painting a more accurate picture of what happened based on then contemporary government recordings ( including the German, English, American, French, and Soviet governments), rather than relying on questionable Nuremberg Trial Evidence, or anecdotal evidence
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=553&v=HBLgZAv_Iqo
>Notes on The German 'White Book' containing the diplomatic information Ronhof uses in his work:
https://archive.org/download/GermanWhiteBookOnPolandLastDaysBeforeWwii/GermanWhiteBookLastDaysPolishCrisis.pdf
>Explanation:
This video is very important, as anyone can go and view these sources he cites to translate and read, housed in government archives.
Ronhof sets the context for the pre WW2 period properly, by examining the facts about German re-armament (the fact that the combined non-reserve military forces of the neighbouring countries on Germany's borders outnumbered Germany's army 12 to 1 in 1933. Ronhof also qualifies this by explaining that Belgian, Czechoslovakian, Polish, French, and Latvian troops had already come into German territory during peacetime, violating the various treaties that were signed).
Ronhof also explains that from psot WW1 to WW2, Europe was never free of localised wars and tension between many European countries. Ronhof rightly details that in this period, Poland and the Soviet Union had a war, Poland and Lithuania had a war, France and Italy had territorial disputes, Denmark and Norway had territorial disputes, Italy and England had territorial disputes, Yugoslavia and Austria had territorial disputes, Germany and Czechoslovakia had territorial disputes, Hungary and Czechoslovakia had territorial disputes,Poland and Czechoslovakia had territorial disputes, Spain and Italy had territorial disputes, Italy and Albania had territorial disputes.
Part 2:
The consideration here, is that we are often not told of this context so it makes the German territorial disputes seem worse or somewhat done in isolation, when this is entirely not true.
Winston Churchill alludes to the legitimacy of the long standing Danzig corridor debate in 1932, in a speech:
"The removal of the just grievances of the vanquished ought to precede the disarmament of the victors. I hope I have made that quite clear. To bring about anything like equality of armaments, if it were in our power to do so, which it happily is not, while those grievances remain unredressed, would be almost to appoint the day for another European war—to fix it as if it were a prize fight. It would be far safer to reopen questions like those of the Danzig Corridor, and Transylvania, with all their delicacy and difficulty, in cold blood and in a calm atmosphere and while the victor nations still have ample superiority, than to wait and drift on, inch by inch and stage by stage, until once again vast combinations, equally matched, confront each other face to face." - Winston Churchill, 23rd November 1932. - http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1932/nov/23/debate-on-the-address
For those that do not know, Hitler proposed to Poland that economically, Danzig should remain a part of Poland, but politically, it should remain a part of Germany. Hitler requested an autobahn from Germany, to Danzig, citing the previous routes that were destroyed post-WW1 that helped both Poland and Germany economically. Hitler offered Poland the Memel region which had been recently annexed by the Reich, in exchange for a route to Danzig. In 1939 Hitler proposed an ultimatum as the superpowers were intentionally not intervening to help Hitler with this humanitarian crisis, in most cases, refusing to believe the legitimacy of the crisis.
Part 3:
The ultimatum was an exchange of minorities in the Corridor to alleviate the crisis. Hitler and Poland did negotiate regarding this potential agreement, however the Poles shut down negotiations with Germany on prompts from Britain and the U.S.A. Prior to this, many Britons were polarised on the Germany issue, as there was rampant propaganda stating they were re-arming solely for war (yes the anti-German war-mongering propaganda existed long before Hitler came to power), but there was a more moderate approach amongst this, which was represented by Neville Chamberlain. A quote from Chamberlain on this topic provides some insight:
"How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing." - Neville Chamberlain.
This quote refers to the radical side of British politics, which began pushing for war with Germany once the Danzig crisis began, and trying to whip up the British into a frenzy of fear, so that they would support a war against Germany.
Minsformation and anti-German propaganda was rife, Chamberlain introduced common sense and a diplomatic mind to the equation, stating it was simply unbelievable that the British people were preparing for war, based on a territorial dispute in a far away country, that no British person had any factual information about. Lots of propaganda was spread, stating Germany was going to invade Poland and look to conquer Europe which spread fear of unrest and aggression.
Part 4:
This was why, once Hitler decided to solve the humanitarian crisis by clearing the Polish Corridor as a humanitarian corridor for the refugees wishing to flee to Germany from Danzig (many ethnic Germans fled persecution in Poland by fleeing to Danzig, which was where the greatest massacres of ethnic Germans by the Polish police and armed forces took place, Hitler's solution was to allow a safe route for them to leave) Britain and France instantly declared war on Germany.
Ronhof details that Germany invited Britain to mediate a peaceful solution to the Polish Corridor issue, to which Britain denied involvement, despite helping them come to a peaceful solution to the Sudetenland crisis. In the final 10 days before the war, Hitler wrote to the Italian, French, English, with the express purpose of avoiding a war. Ronhof also details Hitler's peaceful 16 point proposal (source in pic related) which the German government tried to give the Polish government, however Warsaw refused to physically accept the document as part of an agreement with America and Britain. Hitler mediated with Warsaw via London, and the British had the document, and promised to publish it and speak about it on the radio. However when the proposal was inspected properly, it was insisted that the British people would most likely see the proposal as a reasonable and peaceful solution to the conflict, which would sabotage the effort to bring the British public into the war effort. As a result, the 16 point proposal was covered unfavorably and unjustly slandered.
In addition, the 5 million strong Ukrainian population living in pre-WW2 Poland were being removed, including Germans, as well as many other minorities from border countries.
>>36297
Irving? He's a pariah of the community which is quite sad. Hopefully more people in the west will start to understand that the whole history of WWII was dirty and sometimes their heroes were really just opportunistic bastards. It's not easy to admit.
>>36475
That's not David Irving, its Schultze-Ronhof..........
>>36546
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler's_War
I was thinking about this one when looking at the title.
>>36067
The Soviets are easily the most innocent out of all the major powers in starting the war. Stalin tried to push hard for an anti-Hitler alliance, but France and Britain treated the rise of Germany with complete apathy, initially preferring them to the Soviets. The Nazi-Soviet pact was just a desperate move by Stalin to buy some time.
>>36546
Not the other guy, but his work was heavily criticized and has several structural problems, particularly when it comes to choosing sources. It is always interesting to see different perspectives on a single problem, but you'll probably want to supplement Schultze-Rhonhofs work with additional secondary sources that come to entirely different conclusions.
The Soviet Union was only the lesser evil in the case of Slavs.
