Remember great war leaders warts and all
HISTORY can be a very harsh judge. Brian Taylor’s innocent misuse of it is not a deliberate distortion but just how he sees things.
I visited East Germany in the 1970s during the Soviet period. They had free summer camps and uniforms for children of all ages, just like in the Thirties under Hitler.
Brian says “even the upper classes” supported the Nazis. He should be aware that, from the very outset, the Nazis drew their main support from the military and the rich, both big business and the Prussian landowning aristocracy. Hitler had promised them he would smash the unions which, of course, he did.
It was not Jews that were sent to the first concentration camps in 1933 when Hitler came to power. It was Communists, Socialists and trade unionists.
It is true that Churchill’s voice was the most prominent in Parliament speaking against Appeasement. However, he was not alone. From 1935, he was joined by Scottish miner and Communist Willie Gallagher. Politics makes for strange bedfellows indeed!
Hitler was unfortunate in that he faced three great war leaders at the same time. Their contribution to saving humanity from barbarism should never be underestimated. However, none were without grievous fault. Roosevelt turned away Jewish refugees only for them later to be sent to the death camps to be exterminated. Stalin was responsible for the horrors of the Gulag and the Katyn Massacre. Churchill supported the use of chemical weapons from the air against defenceless Arab villagers. That was before Saddam Hussein and Assad had been heard of.
Churchill became Prime Minister because the Labour Party, led by Clem Attlee, would not serve in a National Wartime Coalition Government under any of the then leaders of the Conservative Party because they were all tainted, like Chamberlain, with years of appeasement of the various dictators. Churchill was not popular with Tory MPs at first.
The Big Three well deserve their honoured place in history. But, like Oliver Cromwell said, let it be “with warts and all”. STUART HILL, Forest Hall