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bobby
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Message 1156479 - Posted: 27 Sep 2011, 0:32:58 UTC - in response to Message 1156455.  

Here's a topic that really does deserve intellectual debate....

Would Europe, including the British Isles be in the crippling state they are today if Winston Churchill refused to be Prime Minister & if no, just what would have America done then?

Churchill, Chance & the Black Dog


That's a great article thanks for the link. I'd advise all to read before posting in reply to Sirius's subject for debate. Seems to me it's no so much about Churchill's refusal to become PM, more about if he had said in May '40 that he would support Lord Halifax as PM, how much difference would it have made?

Would Britain have entered WWII as it's treaties implied it would, and it's declaration of War in September '39 indicated it already had (albeit only to the extent of a Phoney War)?

If Britain had instead sued for peace (as it is suspected Halifax would have) after the Battle of France began, would Hitler, together with Mussolini (and probably Franco) have formed a united Europe under a fascist umbrella? Would Russia and Germany remained allies, as they were when Poland was invaded in 1939? What would the US have done as a result of Germany's declaration of war on it following the attack on Pearl Harbor (Japan attacked the US, the US declared war on Japan, in support of Japan, Germany declared war on the US - as a result of the treaty between Japan and Germany)? What would have happened in Africa and the Gulf nations? Would there be an Israel?

More directly to Britain, would Hitler have mounted an invasion of the UK? And without Churchill's leadership, would the UK have repelled it?

Sirius, it's a massive "what if?" scenario, and I'm sure I've only touched on a few of the items you believe are up for debate. Can I ask you provide a little more direction?
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that ...

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Profile Michael John Hind
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Message 1156482 - Posted: 27 Sep 2011, 1:03:32 UTC
Last modified: 27 Sep 2011, 1:15:02 UTC

Sirius, it's a massive "what if?" scenario, and I'm sure I've only touched on a few of the items you believe are up for debate. Can I ask you provide a little more direction?


Most probably best to work it backwards and first concentrate on "What would America have done" had the UK sued for peace. Personally, I feel Churchill would still have featured in future events and by hook or by crook both the UK and the USA would have still ended up at war with Germany. You could say that the war did not make Churchill but that Churchill made the war, naturally with the USA directing the outcome of it.
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Message 1156487 - Posted: 27 Sep 2011, 1:39:10 UTC - in response to Message 1156211.  

I thought they were large, ate babies and lived under bridges

John, do you have pictures to prove this? ;)
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Message 1156569 - Posted: 27 Sep 2011, 8:28:55 UTC - in response to Message 1156487.  

I thought they were large, ate babies and lived under bridges

John, do you have pictures to prove this? ;)



Only by imagination


It's good to be back amongst friends and colleagues



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Message 1156578 - Posted: 27 Sep 2011, 10:16:38 UTC

Great post Bobby. Personally, the reason why I provided that link for discussion is that it truly does deserve debate & the interesting thing about it is that if debated in sequence of events(alternative events that is) could prove to be a very interesting & topical discussion. direction..ok...

..appeasement. Chamberlain wanted peace at all costs with Lord Halifax wanting the same & after the debacle of Dunkirk I feel that had Britain sued for peace, Western Europe would have been conquered & imv, the 1941 German attack on Russia would not have occurred due to Germany consolidating their gains.

Switzerland, Sweden & Portugual would have eventually became vassals of Germany. & it may have been possible that we still would have gone through a Cold War (Germany & Russia) with the 2 biggest bullies on the block.

America would have returned to their Isolationist views & that in itself would have led Japan to do what she eventually did, whether the attack on Pearl Harbour would have happened then, is anyone's guess, but I personally doubt it would have happened at that point in time.

Looking back on history, if the events I've stated actually happened, I do believe that Germany would have got the "Bomb" 1st & that is another kettle of fish altogether.
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Message 1156624 - Posted: 27 Sep 2011, 13:32:57 UTC - in response to Message 1156607.  

I don't think that we'll ever get to the bottom of the "Hess Affair". There's just too much involved I think for it ever to become public.

During the Nuremburg Trials, many of the German hierarchy were either executed or sentenced to imprisonment with most freed during the 50's. However, Hess was captured long before the war turned really nasty yet still imprisoned for all that time...something definitely stinks about that......
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Message 1156653 - Posted: 27 Sep 2011, 15:40:12 UTC - in response to Message 1156578.  

Great post Bobby. Personally, the reason why I provided that link for discussion is that it truly does deserve debate & the interesting thing about it is that if debated in sequence of events(alternative events that is) could prove to be a very interesting & topical discussion. direction..ok...

..appeasement. Chamberlain wanted peace at all costs with Lord Halifax wanting the same & after the debacle of Dunkirk I feel that had Britain sued for peace, Western Europe would have been conquered & imv, the 1941 German attack on Russia would not have occurred due to Germany consolidating their gains.


I don't believe there's any reason to doubt that Germany would have attacked Russia in 1941, regardless of whether Britain actively entered the war in 1940. I suspect there is reason to doubt the outcome of a German invasion if Britain had sued for peace. Without the diversion of the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe could have provided additional air cover, and Barbarossa may not have been delayed.

Switzerland, Sweden & Portugual would have eventually became vassals of Germany. & it may have been possible that we still would have gone through a Cold War (Germany & Russia) with the 2 biggest bullies on the block.

America would have returned to their Isolationist views & that in itself would have led Japan to do what she eventually did, whether the attack on Pearl Harbour would have happened then, is anyone's guess, but I personally doubt it would have happened at that point in time.


The US was effectively isolationist in 1940, while it is true that FDR did arrange some support for Britain, if Britain had sued for peace, even this relatively small entry into world affairs would not have been needed. I am not certain there is a sequence of events triggered by Britain entering the war that lead to the Japanese offensive on Pearl Harbor, and suspect there is not, much like Germany's invasion of Russia, this event would have happened either way. Whether the US would have declared war on Japan, in full knowledge that to do so would be to take on Germany as well, a Germany that in all likelihood had recently succeeded in overrunning Russia and the bulk of mainland Europe, is, I think, an interesting question.

Looking back on history, if the events I've stated actually happened, I do believe that Germany would have got the "Bomb" 1st & that is another kettle of fish altogether.


Indeed, though I think Germany's reasons for doing so would be to assist Japan's war with China. The defeat of Russia would surely have been at some great cost, and managing a nation that large would no doubt incur significant "start up" costs. Germany would need something that did not require a great deal of "feet on the ground" if it were to turn its gaze on China. The impetus for the US to develop a nuclear bomb would also appear to be clear, what with Germany becoming the de facto superpower, and Japan's demonstration that no nation should consider itself safe.

Fast forwarding a little, with Germany's control, not only of Europe, but also of much of Africa and the Middle East, I fear Judaism would effectively be wiped out from much of the world. There's little to doubt the Holocaust would have occurred, and only in those places that were not under German occupation could that religion have survived. The Zionists that were already in British controlled Palestine, would very likely have been sent to gas chambers, and any antiquities found in the area destroyed. Having sued for peace in 1940 when the immediate threat to the UK was far more obvious, I suspect that Britain would have continued in that vein when Germany started campaigns against distant parts of the Empire.

Also Germany would have become the ultimate controller of oil supplies. This would likely have meant that their industrial might continued to grow uninterrupted and the US may well have not developed into the dominant economic power that it became in the second half of the 20th century.

As Germany's might increased, and its butchery became more widely known ("Did you know they starved all those Russians to death?", "I know, did you hear what happened in Palestine? They say one morning the Nazi's rounded up everybody in Tel Aviv and shot them, women and children too, they even went around the hospital wards shooting those that couldn't move. He's an evil man that Hitler."), Britain and the US would do all they could to ensure they did not "step out of line".

"Would Europe, including the British Isles be in the crippling state they are today"

It seems that I am suggesting that Europe would not be recognizable, by the end of the 20th century, its conceivable that a sizable portion of the world's wealth would be concentrated in Germany, with much of the rest of Europe enslaved. If Britain managed to avoid war with Germany, it almost certainly would have lost large portions of its Empire, and with no superpower to the West to aid the development of its economy, I suspect its withdrawal from the world stage would, if anything, have been accelerated. There's little reason to doubt that North Sea oil and gas would be under German control, so I'd say it's unlikely that Britain in the 60s would have enjoyed an economic boom.

My answer then is, Britain would be in worse shape, the bulk of Europe would be in worse shape, and very likely the US would be in worse shape, should Churchill have said he'd support Lord Halifax, and Halifax had sued for peace.
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that ...

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Message 1156676 - Posted: 27 Sep 2011, 22:36:24 UTC - in response to Message 1156675.  

Wow Bobby, you really are flexing your intellectual muscles, I have to say I'm impressed.

Carry on, this is all good stuff.


+1. Nice response Bobby. Lets keep this thread rolling....it's getting damned good.
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Message 1156815 - Posted: 28 Sep 2011, 13:05:18 UTC - in response to Message 1156607.  
Last modified: 28 Sep 2011, 13:06:07 UTC

In May 1943, the American Mercury magazine published a story from an anonymous source that indicated the British Secret Service lured Hess to Scotland to meet with Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, 14th Duke of Hamilton, a member of the Anglo-German Fellowship and that Hess was on a peace mission; this was denied by Hitler. The Queen's Lost Uncle, a television programme broadcast in November 2003 and March 2005 on Britain's Channel 4, indicated involvement by Prince George, Duke of Kent. It appears that Hess was tricked into thinking he was in communication with the Duke of Hamilton who Hess was led to believe was an opponent of Winston Churchill.


We never have got fully to the bottom of this one, and probably never will.


Quite, though Foreign Office papers related to the subject that were made publicly available in 2007, do not reference any involvement by the Duke of Kent. It also appears, James Lonsdale Bryans, the person who thought he was at the center of negotiations for peace between Britain and Germany, and may have been instrumental in providing Hess with a reason to fly to the UK, was, by November 1945, considered by the security services to be "as mad as a hatter".
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that ...

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Message 1156847 - Posted: 28 Sep 2011, 15:04:09 UTC - in response to Message 1156815.  
Last modified: 28 Sep 2011, 15:05:03 UTC

The sealing of documents in the UK are either 30, 50 or 100 years with the majority of cases being genuine due to the people concerned being still alive.

However, taking Hess's capture date of May 10th 1941 or the date of the end of the war in Europe which was May 8th 1945, the files regarding Hess have been sealed until 2016. Thats either 76 or 71 years depending on what date one takes into consideration.

Sir Hartley Shawcross(Britain's Chief Prosecutor at Nuremberg) in 1977 stated that Hess's continued imprisionment was a "Scandal"

It has been stated that on numerous occasions, the US, British & French governments approached the USSR for Hess's release due to his age, but the Soviet government refused every time. Many have stated that this was due to the Soviet's revenge on the West, however, that still does not justify the length of the file sealing.

Does, or did the British government of the time have something to hide?
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Message 1157036 - Posted: 29 Sep 2011, 11:26:02 UTC

This thread is quite interesting as we were all debating what if the Nazis had achieved a victory in WWII.

There is a very interesting book called Fatherland, and for the ones who do not fancy reading there is a Movie with the same name with Rutger Hauer.

As I’m a bookworm I leaving here a link related with the Novel

Fatherland
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Message 1157073 - Posted: 29 Sep 2011, 13:29:20 UTC
Last modified: 29 Sep 2011, 13:30:19 UTC

With the immense scale of WWII, there are many events, whether political/military/civilian that occurred, with some being disastrious with others being successful.

With the Hess situation, I have always wondered as to why he was imprisoned for so long & since Sir Anthony Blunt was outed in 1979 & publicily stripped of his knighthood, wondered if this had anything to do with Hess's lengthy imprisonment....

The Cambridge Spies

Also, while researching online(was aware of Blunt & the people mentioned in the link long before this topic came up for debate), found another interesting link.

General Sikorski Murdered?

With the success of the Cambridge 4, I've also wondered if at any time, there was a successful German spy within the allied camp, as regardless of history, the German forces in the main, were highly professional & there were many ocassions when allied forces actually respected them.

The main reason why I personally suspect there could have been at least one was due to the fact that the British Security Services during World War 2 were very successful in capturing german spies, yet could not detect others until the mid 1950's....

There are also other major discrepancies that make me wonder....Dunkirk, Normandy are just 2 of them. Each time, the German High Command with some excellent senior field officers, had their enemies on the retreat yet suddenly stopped when all lay before them. In later years, yes, an astrologist had an effect, but not in the early years. I've yet to see this clearly explained away.
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Message 1157099 - Posted: 29 Sep 2011, 15:23:41 UTC - in response to Message 1157046.  

King Edward the VIII, later the Duke of Windsor, was reputed to have had many sympathies with Nazi Germany


Knowledge, the duke of Windsor stayed in Portugal in the city of Estoril in a mansion that was paid by Adolf Hitler himself, the checks with Hitler’s own signature exist and are available in our national archive called “TORRE DO TOMBO”.

It’s a proof that the duke of Windsor had an affiliation with Hitler. History is funny. As sometimes simple facts are hidden from the common people.
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Message 1157112 - Posted: 29 Sep 2011, 16:20:05 UTC - in response to Message 1157099.  

Thanks doc, that's another piece of WWII info to add to my collection. I was never aware of that even though I knew that his sympathies lay with Germany at that time.
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