Tag: Adolf Hitler

Hitler essays
Hitler at a march-past of the purged SA in Nuremberg, September 1935. (Standing second from left, Hermann Göering.) By then the SA was losing power and influence. Its numbers were more than halved by 1938. (Charles Russell Collection, National Archives and Records Administration, public domain)
Churchill’s Hitler Essays: He Knew the Führer from the Start

Churchill’s Hitler Essays: He Knew the Führer from the Start

Comments 0 Comments
"The astounding thing is that the great German people, educated, scientific, philosophical, romantic, the people of the Christmas tree, the people of Goethe and Schiller, of Bach and Beethoven, Heine, Leibnitz, Kant and a hundred other great names, have not only not resented this horrible blood-bath, but have endorsed it and acclaimed its author with the honours not only of a sovereign but almost of a god.... Can we really believe that a hierarchy and society built upon such deeds can be entrusted with the possession of the most prodigious military machinery yet planned among men? —WSC, 1937

Read More Read More

Peace
Heston Aerodrome, 30 September 1938. Mr. Chamberlain returned from Munich with his bit of paper: “My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time.” (Ministry of Information, public domain)
Winston Churchill on Peace with Hitler

Winston Churchill on Peace with Hitler

Comments 0 Comments
"You’re only saying that to be provocative. You know very well we couldn’t have made peace on the heels of a terrible defeat. The country wouldn’t have stood for it. And what makes you think that we could have trusted Hitler’s word—particularly as he could have had Russian resources behind him? At best we would have been a German client state, and there’s not much in that." —WSC

Read More Read More

Mein Kampf
A wedding ceremony in Germany in 1936. “Chancellor Hitler has decided that a copy of his book Mein Kampf will be given to every couple on their wedding day.” (Bibliothèque nationale de France, public domain)
When Did Churchill Read “Mein Kampf”?

When Did Churchill Read “Mein Kampf”?

Comments 1 Comment
Q: Mein Kampf

When did Churchill  first read Mein Kampf, and did he have any ear­ly reac­tion to it?” Of Mein Kampf in his war mem­oirs, he wroe:

…there was no book which deserved more care­ful study from the rulers, polit­i­cal and mil­i­tary, of the Allied Pow­ers. All was there—the pro­gramme of Ger­man res­ur­rec­tion, the tech­nique of par­ty pro­pa­gan­da; the plan for com­bat­ing Marx­ism; the con­cept of a Nation­al-Social­ist State; the right­ful posi­tion of Ger­many at the sum­mit of the world. Here was the new Koran of faith and war: turgid, ver­bose, shape­less, but preg­nant with its message.[1]…

Read More Read More

Anschluss
“Sind wir auf dem richtigen Weg nach Wien?” Road map in hand, Hitler arrives at the Austrian border. The Wehrmacht’s breakdowns of men and equipment soon had him infuriated. Can’t help thinking, if that fellow saluting had been holding a pistol, how history might have changed. (H. Blair Howell, Creative Commons)
Hitler’s Sputtering Austrian Anschluss: Opportunity Missed?

Hitler’s Sputtering Austrian Anschluss: Opportunity Missed?

Comments 1 Comment

Excerpt­ed from “Hitler’s ‘Tet Offen­sive’: Churchill and the Aus­tri­an Anschluss, 1938″ for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. If  you wish to read the whole thing full-strength, with more illus­tra­tions and end­notes, click here.

Bet­ter yet, join 60,000 read­ers of Hills­dale essays by the world’s best Churchill his­to­ri­ans by sub­scrib­ing. You will receive reg­u­lar notices (“Week­ly Win­stons”) of new arti­cles as pub­lished. Sim­ply vis­it https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/, scroll to bot­tom, and fill in your email in the box enti­tled “Stay in touch with us.” Your email remains strict­ly pri­vate and is nev­er sold to pur­vey­ors, sales­per­sons, auc­tion hous­es, or Things that go Bump in the Night.…

Read More Read More

Munich
Munich, 1938: Mussolini and Ciano (last two at right) with Chamberlain, Daladier (who always looked like he was about to have a root canal) and HItler. (Wikimedia Commons)
Munich Reflections: Peace for “a” Time & the Case for Resistance

Munich Reflections: Peace for “a” Time & the Case for Resistance

Comments 0 Comments

Jour­nal­ist Leo McKinstry’s Churchill and Attlee is a deft analy­sis of a polit­i­cal odd cou­ple who led Britain’s Sec­ond World War coali­tion gov­ern­ment. Now, eighty years since the death of Neville Cham­ber­lain, he has pub­lished an excel­lent appraisal in The Spec­ta­tor. Churchill’s pre­de­ces­sor as Prime Min­is­ter, Cham­ber­lain nego­ti­at­ed the 1938 Munich agree­ment. “Peace for our time,” he famous­ly referred to it.  In the end, he bought the world peace for a time.

Mr. McK­instry is right to regret that Cham­ber­lain has been rough­ly han­dled by his­to­ry. “The real­i­ty is that in the late 1930s Chamberlain’s approach was a ratio­nal one,” he writes.…

Read More Read More

fascists
Churchill harangues a dozing House of Commons on the Fascists of the present, 28 November 1934. Ramsay MacDonald and Stanley Baldwin on the front bench. (Cartoon by Victor “Vicky” Weisz)
“Fascists of the future will call themselves Anti-Fascists” Churchill’s words?

“Fascists of the future will call themselves Anti-Fascists” Churchill’s words?

Comments 0 Comments

“Fas­cists of the future” appears unabridged in the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project, July 2020. For the com­plete text, please click here. Sub­scribe free to the Churchill Project and join our 60,000  read­ers. Reg­u­lar notices of new posts appear as they are pub­lished. Sim­ply click here,  scroll to bot­tom, and fill in your email in the box enti­tled “Stay in touch with us.” Your email is nev­er shared with anyone.

Question

“Is this quo­ta­tion is attrib­uted to Win­ston Churchill?: ‘The fas­cists of the future will call them­selves anti-fas­cists.’ There does not seem to be cred­i­ble infor­ma­tion on the inter­net link­ing those words to him, but I would appre­ci­ate your input.”…

Read More Read More

nicknames
“Make Britain Great Again”? Attacking the opposition on behalf of the Tory candidate Anthony Fell (seated), Hammersmith, London, 23 February 1949. Labour won the safe seat, but by under five points, ominous in a usually reliable constituency. Sir Anthony eventually sat for Yarmouth, 1958-83. (Crown copyright expired, public domain)
Churchill’s Potent Political Nicknames: Adm. Row-Back to Wuthering Height

Churchill’s Potent Political Nicknames: Adm. Row-Back to Wuthering Height

Comments 7 Comments

Spo­rad­i­cal­ly, pun­dits com­pare Don­ald Trump with Win­ston Churchill. There’s even a book com­ing out on the sub­ject. I dep­re­cate all this by instinct and will avoid that book like the Coro­n­avirus. Sur­face sim­i­lar­i­ties may exist: both said or say main­ly what they thought or think, unfil­tered by polls (and some­times good advice). But Churchill’s lan­guage and thought were on a high­er plane. Still, when a friend said that Churchill nev­er stooped to deri­sive nick­names like Trump, I had to disagree.

Whether invent­ed by the Pres­i­dent or his scriptwrit­ers, some of Trump’s nick­names were very effec­tive.…

Read More Read More

derangement
A jail cell for that warmongering “Naval Person” was Dr. Goebbels’ prescription for the First Lord of the Admiralty in 1940. It’s odd to reflect that eighty years later, Churchill’s despisers would like to do that with his reputation. (Lǔstige Blätter [Funny Papers], Berlin, January 1940.)
Churchill Derangement Syndrome: A is for Aryans, R is for Racism

Churchill Derangement Syndrome: A is for Aryans, R is for Racism

Comments 5 Comments
“Quality local journalism”

In our elec­tron­ic Speaker’s Cor­ner (the Inter­net), Win­ston Churchill is beset by haters. Their knee-jerk spouts are laced with out-of-con­text quotes and pre­con­ceived notions. Call it Churchill Derange­ment Syn­drome. Where is the truth? Per­haps we need a Derange­ment Index. Click on “A” for Aryan Suprema­cy, “B” for the Ben­gal Famine, etc. A handy ref­er­ence to every derange­ment you can access with a cou­ple of clicks.

An e-zine called This is Local Lon­don, describ­ing its offer­ings as “qual­i­ty local jour­nal­ism,” is a stan­dard exam­ple. Well, maybe not so stan­dard. “The Prob­lem with Glo­ry­ing Win­ston Churchill” was writ­ten not by a his­to­ri­an or researcher, but a stu­dent at Walling­ton Coun­ty Gram­mar School.…

Read More Read More

Hitler essays
Churchill’s perceptive article about Hitler in The Strand Magazine, November 1935. (Ronald I. Cohen collection)
Nashville (5). The Myth that Churchill Admired Hitler

Nashville (5). The Myth that Churchill Admired Hitler

Comments 0 Comments

Part 5 of Win­ston Churchill, Myth and Real­i­ty exam­ines mul­ti­ply­ing fables between the two World Wars. Churchill was an alco­holic, we are often assured. He flip-flopped over Bol­she­vism. All Jews were com­mu­nists, he said. He despised Gand­hi. A clos­et fas­cist, he sup­port­ed Mus­soli­ni. But one tall tale per­haps eclipses all the oth­ers. It is the idea that Churchill admired Hitler. Remarks to the Churchill Soci­ety of Ten­nessee, Nashville, 14 Octo­ber 2017. Con­tin­ued from Part 4…

Judging Hitler

It is impor­tant to under­stand just how right Churchill was about Hitler. In May 1935 the Führer wrote a reveal­ing let­ter to the British news­pa­per mag­nate Esmond Harmsworth, Lord Rother­mere, one of his pro­mot­ers.…

Read More Read More

Churchill and the Avoidable War: Outline

Churchill and the Avoidable War: Outline

Comments 0 Comments

A read­er who enjoys my book, Churchill and the Avoid­able War, sug­gests that it would appeal more broad­ly if peo­ple knew what was in it (like the Afford­able Care Act). Ever anx­ious to reap the huge mon­e­tary rewards of a Kin­dle Sin­gle, I offer this brief out­line. If this con­vinces you to invest in my lit­tle work of his­to­ry (paper­back $7.95, Kin­dle $2.99) thank-you. Kind­ly click here.

Chapter 1. Germany Arming: Encountering Hitler, 1933-34

“Revi­sion­ists” claim Churchill was “for Hitler before he was against him.” To say he admired Hitler is true in one abstract sense: he admired the Führer’s polit­i­cal skill, his abil­i­ty to dom­i­nate and to lead.…

Read More Read More

RML Books

Richard Langworth’s Most Popular Books & eBooks


Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

Churchill by Himself

Churchill in His Own Words

Churchill and the Avoidable War

The Definitive Wit of Winston Churchill

The Patriot’s Churchill

Triumph Cars - The Complete Story
Links on this page may earn commissions.