Munich Pact Archives - Richard M. Langworth

Churchill and the Baltic States: From WW2 to Liberation

25 January 2018 Comments 1 Comment

EXCERPT ONLY: For the complete text of “Churchill and the Baltic” with endnotes, please go to this page on the Hillsdale College Churchill Project.

“No doubt where the right lay”: 1940-95

Soviet Ambassador Ivan Maisky was a “Bollinger Bolshevik” who mixed support for Communism with a love of Western luxury. Friendly to Churchill, he knew the Englishman hoped to separate Hitler and Stalin, even after World War II had started.

But Maisky tended to see what he wished to see. In December he recorded: “The British Government announces its readiness to recognize ‘de facto’ the changes in the Baltics so as to settle ‘de jure’ the whole issue later, probably after the war.” There…

Did Churchill Praise Hitler?

25 June 2009 Comments 14 Comments

The film “Judgment at Nuremberg” suggests that Churchill “praised Hitler” right after the Munich Pact, which would seem an odd time for Churchill to be singing the praises of the Führer. What’s the story? —K.C., Washington

In a speech to the Reichstag in early November 1938, Hitler had attacked Churchill and others who had objected to the Munich Pact by name and describing them as “warmongers.” Replying in the House of Commons on 6 November, Churchill said:

I am surprised that the head of a great State should set himself to attack British members of Parliament who hold no official position and who are not even the leaders of parties.…

“If you will not fight…when you can easily win…”

24 March 2009 Comments 0 Comments

I remember a quip: “When will we fight. When we have no hope.” Can you help me identify the source?

Those words do not track among Churchill’s 15 million published words.. You may be thinking of:

…if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case.…