World War II: An Unspeakable Horror Now Encrusted in Myths
By Robert Higgs • Tuesday September 1, 2009 6:09 PM PDT • 67 Comments
September 1, 1939—exactly seventy years ago today—is customarily considered the day when World War II began, owing to the German invasion of Poland. Of course, some belligerents, most notably the Japanese and the Chinese, had already been at war for years, and others did not join the fray until later. The United States actually began to participate in the war almost immediately, but its participation remained for the most part covert until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
I was born in the midst of this terrible event, and all my life, whenever anyone referred to “the war,” I have assumed, as most Americans have, that the reference was to World War II. It was the largest and the most horrible of all wars, although, sad to say, it no more proved to be “the war to end war” than its predecessor (1914-18) had been. In many ways the two world wars are best understood as two phases of a single conflict, although the matter is much more complicated than that formulation might suggest.
No one knows with much confidence how many people died as a result of the war. Estimates range widely, from a low of about 50 million to a high of nearly 80 million. Perhaps two-thirds of the dead were civilians. Countless others were wounded or harmed in various ways, as by malnutrition. Millions were spiritually scarred for life. The war was very productive of nightmares that, for some individuals, recurred for decades. After all that had taken place between 1939 and 1945, it was difficult to believe that the human beings of the mid-twentieth century, many of whom had regarded themselves as civilized, were any better than their savage ancestors of ten thousand years ago.
Yet, oddly enough, World War II has developed a reputation in this country as “the Good War”—an unfortunate turn of phrase, if ever there was one. The war is taken to have been good primarily because (1) the Allied side is believed to have represented the morally virtuous side, in opposition to the manifestly evil Axis side; (2) it got the U.S. economy out of the Great Depression; and (3) it left the world a better place, mainly because of Nazi Germany’s defeat.
For me, these ideas fall under the rubric of myth. I am not saying that no good came of the war, because obviously some did. As much as anyone, I believe that the destruction of the Nazi regime in Germany was a splendid thing for the human race. But every good end must be weighed against the means by which it was achieved, and in this perspective the war’s positive achievements take on a sickly pallor.
In this war, the belligerents plumbed new depths of depravity: operation of mass-destruction death camps, torture of every conceivable kind, terror bombing and other attacks systematically aimed at civilian populations, crowned by the gratuitous atomic bombing of two large, defenseless cities. I am aware that some people still defend some of these heinous actions, but in my mind nothing the war achieved can justify them. Indeed, I seriously doubt that anything can justify them. Yet such wanton, barbaric cruelties were deeply woven into the fabric of the war’s conduct from its earliest days. One is scarcely engaging in moral equivalence if one concludes that neither side represented “the good guys.” There was plenty of evil to go around.
I have been combatting for decades the widely believed notion that the war got the U.S. economy out of the Great Depression. For readers who still labor under this misconception, I recommend the first five chapters of a book called Depression, War, and Cold War.
Finally, the idea that the war left the world a better place seems to me unacceptable as a flat, unqualified statement. Yes, the defeat of Hitler’s regime was an excellent outcome—may such utter beastliness never dare to show its face again. But over large parts of the territory where Hitler’s troops had reigned supreme in the early 1940s, Stalin’s troops reigned supreme from 1945 to 1989. It is difficult to count Stalin as anything less than first-rate in the category of monstrous tyrants. Yet, if the war had a clear political winner, it was he. Moreover, he and the evil Soviet regime that carried on after his death wreaked massive human and material destruction over a wide swath. Similarly in the East, the defeat of Imperial Japan counts as a positive accomplishment. But that defeat removed a bulwark against Communism’s expansion and ultimate victory in China, and like the eastern Europeans held under Stalin’s sway, the Chinese were to pay a terrible price—the major political consequence of Japan’s defeat on the mainland of Asia.
World War II is an immense subject. Thousands of books have been written about it from almost every conceivable angle, and thousands more books will probably be written in years to come. The complexities being so great, nearly everything one might say about it cries out for qualification and clarification. Nevertheless, I am willing to assert that in important regards the prevailing American view of the war rests on a foundation of myths. The entire enterprise of understanding the war needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.
Tags: American History, Books, China, Europe, Fascism, Germany, Great Depression, Japan, Military, Politics, Russia, The State, War 
This may be a bit off topic, but I was curious what books are good at connecting the outcome of the Paris Treaties after World War I, to other events such as WWII and the Vietnam War? I was listening to a lecture by John Denson and he talks about this subject, names a few books, one of them being 1919. Are there any other titles you would suggest?
Marc | Sep 2, 2009 | Reply
A start has been made by Pat Buchannan.
richard | Sep 2, 2009 | Reply
Greetings,
I agree with much of the analysis. It is important to remember that prior to the outbreak of war, Nazi Germany was allowed to come into existence as to provide a bulwark against Soviet expansion in Eastern Europe. The Second World War was a product of the naïve expectations of Western European leaders. When their “German project” went awry, they felt the repercussions of their political failure. Indeed, France was occupied for almost exactly four years (~June 1940 through ~August 1944), and Great Britain was more or less forced into defending its territories against principally Italian and Japanese aggression (in North Africa and the Pacific, respectively).
The war was not fought for the sake of ending the Nazi regime because of the horrors and tyranny which this regime represented. This did not matter in 1933, and it did not matter in regards to the Soviet Union up until 1945, when the Nazi regime had been exterminated and there were only two poles left: the West and the Communists. The war was fought because the Nazi regime proved to be unreliable. It had turned on their former covert friends, because Hitler had no intentions of being second to anybody. The former bulwark against Communist expansion had turned into the very destroyer of Western democracy.
Whether or not the carpet bombing was justified is a difficult topic to address, which requires a lot of reading on the subject. There is evidence that several former-civilian factories had been turned into military factories, especially as the war dragged on (it should be considered that Germany did not declare “total-war” until after its defeat at Stalingrad, in February 1942). Whether or not this required firebombing entire cities is the question. Probably not, but on the other hand the Allied command probably did not feel safe precision bombing, as that may have required waves than arbitrarily obliterating everything (you don’t have to aim if your objective is to destroy absolutely everything).
In any case, it’s interesting to note that the Western Allies did not continue their war on the European continent out of any feeling of retribution against Nazi war crimes or tyranny. The Allied campaign in Italy had turned into an utter debacle, as Allied forces were incapable of breaking through the staunch German defenses, especially in Northern Italy. The Allied landings in Normandy were carried out under the intentions of denying the Soviets from Western Europe. It is also interesting to point out that the Western Allied eastward advance only slowed when the logistical tether had been outpaced (thanks to the failure of Operation Market Garden, which consumed more supplies than it was able to create by opening any Dutch ports) and when the future occupational borders of Europe had already been decided between the “Great Powers”.
In any case, I am sure that the war left behind a better place. Indeed, it is obviously better to murder millions of Vietnamese as opposed to somebody else murdering millions of Jews and gypsies.
Jonathan Finegold Catalán | Sep 2, 2009 | Reply
I suggest two recent books: Jim Powell, Wilson’s War; and Patrick J. Buchanan, Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War. Both argue along these lines. Neither author presents original historical research, but both draw on a wide range of solid historical sources in a reasonable way.
Robert Higgs | Sep 2, 2009 | Reply
Truman gleamed the idea of staying armed all the time ushering in a permenant Industrial Military Complex which continues to carpet bomb to this very day. Certainly the theaters have changed but has World War II completely ended?
Bob | Sep 2, 2009 | Reply
The Rothschild empire was created by infiltrating every level of ALL Western governments. Through manipulation, bribery, slander, assassination, and control of the mass media, cloaked as JEWS; Zionist contrived to pit nation against nation, race against race, financing all sides in the resultant wars; then at exorbitant interest rates financing reconstruction of the devastated countries. Rothschild’s modus operandi has kept Western Civilization in a continuous state of war and eternally in debt.
Since 1924, the Dawes Plan flooded Germany with a tremendous amount of American capital, which enabled Germany to build its war machine. The three largest loans went into the development of industries, such as I. G. Farben Co. (the German company which became the largest corporation in Europe, and the largest chemical company in the world, after a $30 million loan from the Rockefeller’s National City Bank after World War I, and who created a process of making high grade fuel from low quality coals) and Vereinigte Stahlwerke (who produced about 95% of Germany’s explosives). In 1939, Standard Oil of New Jersey sold I. G. Farben $20,000 worth of high quality aviation fuel. I. G. Farben’s assets in the United States were controlled by a holding company called Since 1924, the Dawes Plan flooded Germany with a tremendous amount of American capital, which enabled Germany to build its war machine. The three largest loans went into the development of industries, such as I. G. Farben Co. (the German company which became the largest corporation in Europe, and the largest chemical company in the world, after a $30 million loan from the Rockefeller’s National City Bank after World War I, and who created a process of making high grade fuel from low quality coals) and Vereinigte Stahlwerke (who produced about 95% of Germany’s explosives). In 1939, Standard Oil of New Jersey sold I. G. Farben $20,000 worth of high quality aviation fuel. I. G. Farben’s assets in the United States were controlled by a holding company called American I. G. Farben Chemical Corp. On the Board of Directors of this corporation was Edsel Ford (President of the Ford Motor Co.), On the Board of Directors of this corporation was Edsel Ford (President of the Ford Motor Co.), Charles E. Mitchell (President of National City Bank in New York City), Walter C. Teagle (President of Standard Oil of New York), Paul Warburg (Chairman of the Federal Reserve), and Herman Metz (Director of the Warburg’s Bank of Manhattan). Several Germans on this Board were found guilty of war crimes at Nuremburg. A U.S. War Department investigation revealed that without Farben’s support, “Germany’s prosecution of the war would have been unthinkable and impossible.”
Everything is in place – after 500 years – to build a true ‘new world’ in the Western Hemisphere... And what happens if we don’t pass NAFTA? I truly don’t think that ‘criminal’ would be too strong a word for rejecting NAFTA.
–David Rockefeller (1915- ) Internationalist billionaire, CFR kingpin, founder of the Trilateralist Commission, World Order Godfather.
It is really UGLY.
google Rockefeller Farben WWII Zyklon B
permindex | Sep 2, 2009 | Reply
Two excellent books in this same vein are World War 1: The Rest of the Story and How It Affects You Today and World War 2: The Rest of the Story and How It Affects You Today, both by Richard Maybury. These books are part of a series of books that I highly recommend.
Lance | Sep 2, 2009 | Reply
Hey,
It’s a pity you can’t attach pictures to a post”
THE LOVE OF MONEY AND HOW MANY PEOPLE IT HAS KILLED
(Part of an ongoing discussion over Ellen Brown’s “Web of Debt” including Henry Makow’s, “Hitler Did Not Want War”).
By Tom Dennen
(Cagle’s Daily Cartoons – Large investment bank on top of small bank on top of a pile of ‘bad mortgages’. Investment banker to small banker, “How can you have been so careless when building your foundation?”)
It is always difficult to have a discussion on the topic of WW II, Germany, and Hitler, without having emotions run high. And Understandably so. We do not believe that there is a world plot in place by those of the Jewish race to dominate the world. We do however suspect that there is a plot in place by the major financiers and financial institutions, to control the place, like they control 96% of the western media.
History is written by the victors” – W. Churchill
Here’s an interesting perspective on World War II, and the players involved:
Many people take joy in saying Wall Street and Jewish bankers “financed Hitler.” There is plenty of documented evidence that Wall Street and Jewish bankers did indeed help finance Hitler at first, partly because it allowed the bankers to get rich (as I will describe below) and partly in order to control Stalin. However, when Hitler broke free from the bankers, the bankers declared a world war against Germany in the guise of their patsies, the Diaspora Jews.
(Few people know the facts about the singular event that helped spark what ultimately became known as World War II – the international Jewish declaration of war on Germany shortly after Adolf Hitler came to power and well before any official German government sanctions or reprisals against Jews were carried out. The March 24, 1933 issue of The Daily Express of London described how Jewish leaders, in combination with powerful international Jewish financial interests, had launched a boycott of Germany for the express purpose of crippling her already precarious economy in the hope of bringing down the new Hitler regime. It was only then that Germany struck back in response. Thus, if truth be told, it was the worldwide Jewish leadership – not the Third Reich – that effectively fired the first shot in the Second World War. Prominent New York attorney Samuel Untermyer was one of the leading agitators in the war against Germany, describing the Jewish campaign as nothing less than a “holy war.”)
When we look at all the facts, the charge that “Jews financed Hitler” becomes irrelevant.
Los Angeles Attorney Ellen Brown discusses this topic in her book Web of Debt…
When Hitler came to power, Germany was hopelessly broke, she says. The Treaty of Versailles had imposed crushing reparations on the German people, demanding that Germans repay every nation’s costs of the war. These costs totaled three times the value of all the property in Germany. Private currency speculators caused the German mark to plummet, precipitating one of the worst runaway inflations in modern times. A wheelbarrow full of 100 billion-mark banknotes could not buy a loaf of bread. The national treasury was empty. Countless homes and farms were lost to speculators and to private banks.
Germans lived in hovels. They were starving. This is soon becoming a familiar picture in the United States, beginning with the sub prime losses.
Daniel Webster understood this and wrote,
“Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effective than that which deludes them with paper money.”
At that point the German government thwarted the international banking cartels by issuing its own sovereign money. World Jewry (Zionist banksters) responded by declaring a global boycott against Germany. Hitler began a national credit program by devising a plan of public works that included flood control, repair of public buildings and private residences, and construction of new roads, bridges, canals, and port facilities. All these were paid for with money that no longer came from the private international bankers.
The projected cost of these various programs was fixed at one billion units of the sovereign national currency. To pay for this, the German government (not the international bankers) issued bills of exchange, called Labor Treasury Certificates (California governor Schwartzenegger calls his IOUs watch that space!).
In this way the National Socialists put millions of people to work, and paid them with Treasury Certificates. Under the National Socialists, Germany’s money wasn’t backed by gold (which was owned by the international bankers). It was essentially a receipt for labor and materials delivered to the government. Hitler said, “For every mark issued, we required the equivalent of a mark’s worth of work done, or goods produced.” The government paid workers in Certificates. Workers spent those Certificates on other goods and services, thus creating more jobs for more people. In this way the German people climbed out of the crushing debt imposed on them by the international bankers.
Within two years, the unemployment problem had been solved. Debunkers of the German ‘economic miracle’ will quite rightly say that Germany paid women to marry and took thousands of men into the military, cutting down the unemployment figures.
But Germany was back on its feet. It had a solid, stable currency, with no debt, and no inflation, at a time when millions of people in the United States and other Western countries (controlled by international bankers) were still out of work in a horrendous place called The Great Depression – what we are entering now is The Great Recession, hopefully, with monetary reform probably based on sovereign currency, the last.
Within five years, Germany went from the poorest nation in Europe to the richest.
Germany even managed to restore foreign trade, despite the international bankers’ denial of foreign credit to Germany, and despite the global boycott by Jewish-owned industries.
Germany succeeded in this by exchanging equipment and commodities directly with other countries, using a barter system that cut the bankers out of the picture. Germany flourished, since barter eliminates national debt and trade deficits.
(Venezuela does the same thing today when it trades oil for commodities, plus medical help, and so on, which is why the bankers, with American CIA help, are trying to squeeze Venezuela.)
Germany’s economic freedom was short-lived; but it left several monuments, including the famous Autobahn, the world’s first extensive superhighway. Hjalmar Schacht, a Rothschild agent who was temporarily head of the German central bank, summed it up thus … An American banker had commented, “Dr. Schacht, you should come to America. We’ve lots of money and that’s real banking.” Schacht replied, “You should come to Berlin. We don’t have money. That’s real banking.” (Schacht, the Rothschild agent, actually supported the private international bankers against Germany, and was rewarded by having all charges against him dropped at the Nuremberg trials.)
Germany was rescued from (the still prevailing) economic theory, which says that all currency must be borrowed against the gold owned by a private and secretive banking cartel — such as the Federal Reserve, or the Central Bank of Europe — rather than issued by the government for the benefit of the people.
Jewish Canadian researcher Dr. Henry Makow says the main reason why the bankers arranged for a world war against Germany was that Hitler sidestepped the bankers by creating his own money, thereby freeing the German people. Worse, this freedom and prosperity threatened to spread to other nations. Hitler had to be stopped!
Makow quotes from the 1938 interrogation of C. G. Rakovsky, one of the founders of Soviet Bolshevism and a Trotsky intimate. Rakovsky was tried in show trials in the USSR under Stalin. According to Rakovsky, Hitler was at first funded by the international bankers, through the bankers’ agent Hjalmar Schacht.
The bankers financed Hitler in order to control Stalin, who had usurped power from their agent Trotsky. Then Hitler became an even bigger threat than Stalin when Hitler started printing his own money. (Stalin came to power in 1922, which was eleven years before Hitler came to power.)
Rakovsky said: “Hitler took over the privilege of manufacturing money, and not only physical moneys, but also financial ones. He took over the machinery of falsification and put it to work for the benefit of the people. Can you possibly imagine what would have come if this had infected a number of other states?” (Henry Makow, “Hitler Did Not Want War”, March 21, 2004).
Economist Henry C K Liu writes of Germany’s remarkable transformation:
“The Nazis came to power in 1933 when the German economy was in total collapse, with ruinous war-reparation obligations and zero prospects for foreign investment or credit. Through an independent monetary policy of sovereign credit and a full-employment public-works program, the Third Reich was able to turn a bankrupt Germany, stripped of overseas colonies, into the strongest economy in Europe within four years, even before armament spending began.” (Henry C. K. Liu, “Nazism and the German Economic Miracle,” Asia Times (May 24, 2005).
In Billions for the Bankers, Debts for the People (1984), Sheldon Emry commented:
“Germany issued debt-free and interest-free money from 1935 on, which accounts for Germany’s startling rise from the depression to a world power in five years. The German government financed its entire operations from 1935 to 1945 without gold, and without debt. It took the entire Capitalist and Communist world to destroy the German (financial) revolution, and bring Europe back under the heel of the Bankers.”
These facts do not appear in any textbooks today. What does appear is the disastrous runaway inflation suffered in 1923 by the Weimar Republic, which governed Germany from 1919 to 1933. Today’s textbooks use this inflation to twist truth into its opposite. They cite the radical devaluation of the German mark as an example of what goes wrong when governments print their own money, rather than borrow it from private cartels. In reality, the Weimar financial crisis began with the impossible reparations payments imposed at the Treaty of Versailles. Hjalmar Schacht [who was never a Nazi Party member either and now it appears clear why that was the case] – the Rothschild agent who was currency commissioner for the Republic — opposed letting the German government print its own money…
“The Treaty of Versailles is a model of ingenious measures for the economic destruction of Germany. Germany could not find any way of holding its head above the water, other than by the inflationary expedient of printing bank notes.”
Schacht echoes the textbook lie that Weimar inflation was caused when the German government printed its own money. However, in his 1967 book The Magic of Money, Schacht let the cat out of the bag by revealing that it was the PRIVATELY-OWNED Reich bank, not the German government that was pumping new currency into the economy. Thus, the PRIVATE BANK caused the Weimar hyper-inflation.
Like the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Reich bank was overseen by appointed government officials, but was operated for private gain. What drove the wartime inflation into hyperinflation was speculation by foreign investors, who sold the mark short, betting on its decreasing value, something about to happen to the American dollar. In the manipulative device known as the short sale, speculators borrow something they don’t own, sell it, and then “cover” by buying it back at the lower price.
Speculation in the German mark was made possible because the PRIVATELY OWNED Reich bank (not yet under Nazi control) made massive amounts of currency available for borrowing. This currency, like U.S. currency today, was created with accounting entries on the bank’s books. Then the ‘funny money’ was lent at compound interest. When the Reich bank could not keep up with the voracious demand for marks, other private banks were allowed to create marks out of nothing, and to lend them at interest. The result was runaway debt and inflation.
Thus, according to Schacht himself, the German government did not cause the Weimar hyperinflation. On the contrary, the government (under the National Socialists) got hyperinflation under control. The National Socialists put the Reich bank under strict government regulation, and took prompt corrective measures to eliminate foreign speculation. One of those measures was to eliminate easy access to funny-money loans from private banks. Then Hitler got Germany back on its feet by having the public government issue Treasury Certificates, exactly the same as Abraham Lincoln’s Greenback Dollar and John F. Kennedy’s Silver Certificates.
Schacht , the Rothschild agent, disapproved of this government fiat money, and wound up getting fired as head of the Reich bank when he refused to issue it. Nonetheless, he acknowledged in his later memoirs that allowing the government to issue the money it needed did not produce the price inflation predicted by classical (imposed) economic theory, which says that currency must be borrowed from private cartels.
What causes hyper-inflation is uncontrolled speculation. When speculation is coupled with debt (owed to private banking cartels) the result is disaster. On the other hand, when a government issues currency in carefully measured ways, it causes supply and demand to increase together, leaving prices unaffected. Hence there is no inflation, no debt, no unemployment, and no need for income taxes.
Naturally this terrifies the bankers, since it eliminates their powers. It also terrifies the internationalists, since their control of banking allows them to buy the media, the government and just about everything else.
Tom Dennen | Sep 2, 2009 | Reply
I find no fault with Mr. Robert Higgs’s opinion on W.W. II. I have enlightened myself about possible truths about twenty years ago via the Internet; it has opened my mind completely from biased high school textbook learning; thank you Internet, you have set me free about “truth ” versus government-induced bias via publishers of texts.
Warren O'Leary | Sep 2, 2009 | Reply
WWII now is caricatured in Tarantino’s latest movie. The war, in popular culture, has become a set of cliches used by the politically correct — both liberals and neoconservatives — to batter their opponents. As a recent YouTube parody of the Hitler bunker movie “Downfall” put it, all sides now accuse their opponents of being Adolf. Studing the reality of the war has become the province of antiquarians, much like those interested in Periclean Athens.
John Seiler | Sep 2, 2009 | Reply
I TOO AM CONVINCED WWII did not have to happen for the simple reason that the Brits and the French should of acquiesced and given Hitler what had been Germany’s for 3 centuries, Danzig. John Maynard Keynes warned at Versailles that Germany would one day return and take back Danzig and as Buchanan points out—as does history, Hitler negotiated for months to that end. And let us not forget that the first Nazi extermination camp came about after the fall of France. So who can say with any certainty that it would have happened if war had not been declared. What Hitler did was horrible but not any less horrific that the extermination of 20 million Russians by Stalin and that happened well before the WWII!
We seem to forget that the shame and economic Armageddon inflicted on Germany after WWI by France and England led to Germany not trusting their motives and to think that WWII was declared over a piece of land that was stripped from Germany at Versailles—please explain to me how that makes any sense, that is, declaring war on Germany who only wanted to repatriate land that had belonged to Germany for centuries? Finally, it is rarely mentioned that among the people in this country who opposed going to war and were pushing for a negotiated peace were, just to name a few, Sargent Shriver, Gerald Ford and Kingman Brewster (future president of Yale).
FRANK Battaglia | Sep 2, 2009 | Reply
I remember growing up in the ’60s with the myth of the “good war” (my father and most of his generation, uncles, his high school buddies, etc., served in the military during that war). Yet I was driven to ponder, from time to time, if we were so righteous and good in that war, why did we continue to be afflicted with all the problems and crises of the subsequent Cold (and sometimes hot) War (i.e., Berlin crisis, Cuban Missile crisis, Vietnam, etc.)?
MarkinPNW | Sep 2, 2009 | Reply
In response to Mr. Catalan, I am confused and amazed at your post, not recognizing the events you describe from my reading of the history of WWII. Clearly, there is little libertarian common ground with someone who seriously states: “Whether or not the carpet bombing was justified is a difficult topic to address...” One wonders why you would read this site at all.
One point that Prof. Higgs didn’t mention is the massive changes that were wrought on the US political landscape due to the war, a topic he covers elsewhere when he expounds on the military-industrial-congressional complex.
Considering the communist veil that the war dropped over all of eastern Europe and most of Asia as well as the fascist veil dropped over the US–formerly the world’s beacon of hope irreparably driven down the path to destruction–I would say without the slightest hesitation that WWII was not worth the gain. Had Churchill and Roosevelt been able to bottle up their meddling and let Hitler and Stalin destroy each other, as even the not so genius Harry S for nothin’ Truman suggested, the world just may be a better place today.
Cathy | Sep 2, 2009 | Reply
Here’s an ill effect the rest of the world is still suffering – the creation of the dollar as a reserve currency of the world and the rise of a new emperor -the one who murdered millions in vietnam and iraq among others.toppling democratic leaders in iran to engineeringcoups in lat am.creating the mess of mujahadeens in afghanistan. well done america!
Pravin | Sep 3, 2009 | Reply
It’s ironic that so much is made of how the US fought the Nazis to save the world, only to learn that following the defeat the US raced with the USSR to capture Nazi scientists and technology to get the advantage over each other in the upcoming Cold War. Under operation Paperclip, the US gave legal immunity to certain Nazi prisoners so as to use their knowledge of fighting the Soviets on the Eastern front to begin clandestine operations against the USSR.
Or how the US did little to accept refugee Jews in the 1930′s fleeing Nazi Germany, such as the U.S.S. St. Louis incident.
In regards to Japan, after demolishing them as a country, thg U.S. subsidized them by limiting their military, so they could spend all their GNP to invest in their industry—beating us later with better goods by the 1970′s and 80′s. Plus all of the US dollars from the paychecks of US servicemen that were fed into their economy by both the occupational troops and those from the Korean and Vietnam Wars.
Ron Shirtz | Sep 3, 2009 | Reply
Understanding the real reasons for WW 1 and 2:
Research:
http://exulanten.com/bahn.html
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=4607
Peter | Sep 3, 2009 | Reply
“Indeed, it is obviously better to murder millions of Vietnamese as opposed to somebody else murdering millions of Jews and gypsies.”
Are you serious? What does that mean? That it’s better to be a murderer than somebody else being a murderer? That Vietnamese lives aren’t worth as much as Jewish lives?
Mark Davis | Sep 3, 2009 | Reply
“Yes, the defeat of Hitler’s regime was an excellent outcome—may such utter beastliness never dare to show its face again.”
Most of this so-called “utter beastliness” occured BECAUSE of the war, not before it. There were no death camps, or Holocaust, etc. ’till AFTER the war started. Rhetorically speaking, what does one do with an enemy (subversive/communist) population within one’s borders during a time of existential war, with limited resources for even one’s own people?
William Green | Sep 3, 2009 | Reply
Richard Maybury has written a number of very good books on Common Law, Austrian Economics, and so forth. He also did a book on each of the world wars, basically from the point of view that we should not have gotten into it, to support Stalin was a mistake, FDR knew about Pearl Harbor beforehand, and lots of other “politically incorrect” information, backed up by lots of historical references. It was a great intro for me.
Savannah Liston | Sep 3, 2009 | Reply
I daresay the remark about killing Vietnamese vs. Jews was ironic. People taking themselves way too seriously seems to be a theme on the Internet.
In response to another poster who berated someone for reading this site because they were asking whether bombing was necessary or not; You, sir, are a lost cause.
How on Earth do you think that the principles of freedom and liberty are going anywhere if the only people exposed to the information are already libertarians/minarchists/etc.?
Obviously you don’t understand the futility signaled by the saying, “You are preaching to the choir.”
There is no fanatic or snob like the newly converted. To them it is as if they always new the truth and all others who cannot see it their way must be tremendously stupid.
Well, bud, you weren’t born libertarian either so STFU.
Freedom | Sep 3, 2009 | Reply
I’ve always thought that a much under-discussed topic in both wars was the rising economic threat that Germany posed to the Anglo-American Empire. I’ve never thought it was coincidence that the first “expeditionary force” to leave the UK in 1914 wasn’t bound for Brave Little Belgium but was headed instead to Basra. Couldn’t allow the completion of the Berlin-Baghdad railway now, could we?
Bill Jones | Sep 3, 2009 | Reply
Let us not forget that all wars are simply profit centers for the money masters who create pacts with the state apparatus, creating debts and fiat monies, returning the war investors great sums at the expense of the people. Never forget the words of Major General Smedley D. Butler, War is a Racket.
Scott | Sep 3, 2009 | Reply
I think Soviet Russia was arguably worse than Nazi Germany. I think Imperial Japan was as bad as Soviet Russia, and worse than Nazi Germany.
I think perhaps we and the world would have been better off if we had teamed up with Nazi Germany to defeat Soviet Russia.
Also, we made a huge, baffling mistake by turning a deaf ear to appeals for help from anti-Hitler forces in Germany.
Mike Griffith | Sep 3, 2009 | Reply
Whenever most people talk about the war, they talk about the Great defeat of Hitler. Why no talk about giving most of Europe to Stalin for 50 some odd years??? Like it was a good thing. Rozy gave Stalin everything he wanted, even German POWS. Stalin got it all. Why are there no large Hollywood movies about that???? Could it be that we North Americans are somewhat sympathetic to the Soviet cause??? Hitler bad. Stalin good.
Taras | Sep 3, 2009 | Reply
Mark Davis,
I thought it would obviously pass for sarcasm. Obviously, I was wrong. But, yes, I was being sarcastic.
Cathy,
I am afraid that you missed the point I was trying to make. If we are to judge the firebombing of German cities as unlibertarian, then it should be said that the entire war was unlibertarian. I am not arguing against that notion. I agree with it already. But, the fact of the matter was that the war existed. I am speaking within the context of accepting the reality of war. You cannot dismiss the firebombings as unnecessary by claiming that otherwise you are not a libertarian.
On the other hand, I am not justifying the firebombings (and I did not do so in my previous post). All I did was admit that there must be a lot of research on either end. The topic of the firebombings is an extremely difficult topic to handle, because there is a lot of contradictory information that must be handled. As an amateur historian of the Second World War (amateur only because I do not hold any kind of degree in history) I have come to witness the complexity of the situation. On the one hand, the firebombings killed tens of thousands of German civilians (casualties are still disputed, although that is irrelevant when looking at the “big picture), and on the other how many would have been killed otherwise? I am not talking simply civilians killed due to an increase in German manufacturing, or civilians killed in a different style of bombing. I am talking about civilians killed by the Allies by other methods, including by the pulverization of entire towns by ground units (as was customary, to provide incentive for the next town to surrender outright).
There is ample evidence which suggests that the firebombings were ineffective. I specialize in tank warfare, and I know for a fact that German tank production increased in early and mid-1944, and then spiked down (specifically, because a number of tank factories were bombed out of existence... but the fact is that those limited amounts of factories had to be destroyed after destroying countless of other factories that had nothing to do with tank assembly).
But, it has to be admitted that the issue does not come down to whether it was libertarian or not. The entire war was not libertarian in nature, and to argue specific instances from a libertarian point of view is worthless. You can only do that to the war in general. If the war was an act of aggression, it will be obvious that every action within that war will also be an act of aggression. But, that’s not what I was discussing.
Jonathan Finegold Catalán | Sep 3, 2009 | Reply
Once again, an incisive look at an event that most Americans believe they understand and know about, without really having a clue (myself included). Dr. Higgs is brilliant.
shill | Sep 3, 2009 | Reply
War is simply about theft and the covering up of criminal activities. There is no good or evil—they are just the illusions to perpetuate the theft as long as possible. War is simply about about a very small group of people becoming extremely wealthy at the expense of everyone else. Nothing has changed in 5,000 years of warfare. All the wars around the world at the moment are the same, theft, theft, theft and theft. All participants are petty criminals benefiting a very tiny group of people making untaxed, huge, hidden profits, hidden in deep bank vaults around the world.
michael | Sep 3, 2009 | Reply
Mr. Green makes a serious historical mistake in attributing Nazi atrocities to the exigencies of war.
The domestic policy of the Third Reich before the war started involved suppression of dissent, large scale imprisonment of dissidents, “mercy killing” of the insane and mentally feeble, and a succession of laws designed to eliminate Jews from German society. This is all well documented.
The actions of the German army in Poland—before France & Britain entered the war—also showed the brutal face of the Third Reich. Nazi propaganda for years indicated that Slavs and Jews would have no rights in the German Reich and its occupied territories.
It’s absurd that anyone should have to be reminded of this, given the clear historical record.
Gene Berkman | Sep 3, 2009 | Reply
I too was born during WW2, and my father was a carrier fighter pilot in the Pacific when Japan surrendered. At that time there was a general acceptance that: 1. The Japanese would fight fiercely to defend their home islands and that casualties would be high for both sides when we initiated that attack; and 2. Squadrons deployed in combat zones would remain there until the end of the fighting rather than being rotated back to the States. To me that means that without the A-bombs, more Japanese and certainly more allied troops would die before the surrender eventuated; and that I might never have known my dad, who flew combat missions at Okinawa and certainly would have been slated to fly during home islands attacks. The atom bombs were indeed horrible—I cannot understand why we could not have demonstrated their power to Japanese representatives some other way. But no one can deny that their use shortened the war with Japan and most probably saved lives in the long run. War is a horrible beast that ALWAYS delivers unexpected results—the death of even one innocent is a tragedy. But self-preservation and self-defense are fundamental instincts, in individuals and in states.
Bob | Sep 3, 2009 | Reply
I have been a student of WWI for ten years (and I have yet been able to figure out exactly why the war was fought) and I highly recommend David Fromkin’s A Peace to End All Peace and his Europe’s Last Summer.
Greg Josif | Sep 3, 2009 | Reply
Nagasaki and Hiroshima were not defenseless cities! Sounds like more “blame America first”
drivel from an appeasing, bed-wetting Liberal.
Franko | Sep 3, 2009 | Reply
At Least we now have the United Nations and all the Good ‘they do......NOT
netman | Sep 3, 2009 | Reply
Franko, of course they were defenseless. In what sense were they defended against the atom bomb?
Anthony Gregory | Sep 4, 2009 | Reply
Bob, you have touched upon the inherently collectivist nature of modern war, which renders all of them unjust. Although I can’t speak much to the perceptions of the people at the time, many military leaders opposed the nukings:
http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm
And Japan had been reaching out for a negotiated surrender for months. The nation mainly wanted to keep its Emperor, which it was allowed to do anyway after the unconditional surrender. To give some context to the aggressive nature of the U.S. at the end of the war, the U.S. bombed Tokyo with a thousand aircraft even after the Japanese surrendered:
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0908j.asp
Anthony Gregory | Sep 4, 2009 | Reply
Jonathan Finegold Catalán, you write: “But, it has to be admitted that the issue does not come down to whether it was libertarian or not. The entire war was not libertarian in nature, and to argue specific instances from a libertarian point of view is worthless. You can only do that to the war in general. If the war was an act of aggression, it will be obvious that every action within that war will also be an act of aggression.”
I see where you’re coming from, but libertarianism concerns individual rights. It is possible for a war to be unjust and yet not every action in the war is unjust. Union soldiers liberating slaves, U.S. officials saving individual Iraqis in specific situations — even unjust wars involve acts that are morally defensible, even heroic. And even wars that one might consider to be of just cause (like the American Revolution) involve acts that are in themselves unjust, tainting the whole project but not rendering each other individual act to be immoral.
I, for one, think all state wars are unlibertarian. But I also think you have to look at the war in terms of individualism, and not collectivism, if your goal is to assess any specific action. The Soviets were just to repel the Nazis in WWII, but not everything they did in the act was defensible, for example.
Anthony Gregory | Sep 4, 2009 | Reply
Paul Fussel has written great stuff about WWII. He noted that of the 12 million GIs in uniform, only around 1 million volunteered, the rest were pulled in kicking and screaming with threats of prison. Also note that in addition to the Japanese, some 10,000 suspect German-Americans were imprisoned, and an equal number of Italians.
Carl | Sep 4, 2009 | Reply
Anthony Gregory,
I agree, which is a major reason why I suggest that people should take a more objective look into firebombing, as opposed to simply dismissing it as a war crime. Again, I am not suggesting that they weren’t. My argument is that the argument against firebombing should be more than, “it killed a lot of innocent German civilians, without helping the war cause.”
Jonathan Finegold Catalán | Sep 4, 2009 | Reply
Thanks for the book recommendation. I’m putting it on my reading list. It’s good to remember but anyway you look at it, war is not good as the innocent suffer too. A book I recently picked up called Abandoned and Forgotten (author Evelyne Tannehill) talks about this from the perspective of a 9-year old girl living on a simple non-political family farm in Eastern Prussia. It talks about how it impacts the innocent civilian population who just want to live their lives in peace but who have no say in the decisions of their government. It is helping me to understand what happened to the Germans in Eastern Prussia at the end of World War II.
Betty | Sep 4, 2009 | Reply
Mr Higgs states that “Similarly in the East, the defeat of Imperial Japan counts as a positive accomplishment. But that defeat removed a bulwark against Communism’s expansion and ultimate victory in China.”
In the book, Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power: The Emergence of Revolutionary China 1937-1945, Chalmers Johnson argues that, had it not been for Japan’s depredations, Communism would not actually have taken hold in China. BECAUSE of Japanese beastliness, local populations turned to the only available alternative, the revolutionary communist movement.
See here.
El Tonno | Sep 4, 2009 | Reply
Anthony,
I loved your response of September 4 to Jonathan Finegold Catalan. Very clear thinking that helps me sort through the actions of war.
Best, David
David R. Henderson | Sep 5, 2009 | Reply
In most discussions about the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings there is an elephant of a “point” that seems to go unnoticed. The whole argument about whether or not the bombings saved lives by ending the war early or whether the Japanese were about to surrender anyway ignores the question of the morality of killing civilians to save the lives of soldiers.
Would we accept the logic of any other fighting force in the world that they had to destroy cities full of people to save the lives of their fighters? Should the people of the world who are tired of being bombed and invaded by the US destroy a few of our cities and then offer as an excuse that an invasion of America would have cost the lives of too many of their soldiers?
homingpigeon | Sep 5, 2009 | Reply
Read The Folly of War.
Steve | Sep 5, 2009 | Reply
A narrative ‘history’ of WW2, Human Smoke by Nicholson Baker is a curious and worthwhile read.
Novista | Sep 5, 2009 | Reply
Hang in There; Don’t let the SWINE win Agaain.!@
netman | Sep 5, 2009 | Reply
Except for the seriously wounded, the emotionally crippled (which was nearly everybody), I never met a world war two solider that wasn’t a self deluding liar, a bigot, or a fool.
Matt | Sep 6, 2009 | Reply
cui bono?
Chris | Sep 6, 2009 | Reply
Gene you are correct about the Nazi’s fascist policies before the war – but that doesn’t mean Mr.Green made a “serious historical mistake” at all.
Many of the major atrocities of the war(extermination camps etc) would not have happened without the war. This is true of many wars actually, where systematic violent insanity is played and justified through the cover of war. I think it is massive historical mistake to think otherwise. A bit better reading of the historical record might help you there, Gene....
stevieb | Sep 6, 2009 | Reply
Franko wrote:
# Sounds like more “blame America first”
# drivel from an appeasing, bed-wetting Liberal.
Sounds like more “blame the Libruls” drivel from a boot-licking Authoritarian posturing as a Conservative.
Moe Badderman | Sep 7, 2009 | Reply
World War II myths are now being overturned at an astonishing rate, especially as researchers are gaining access to Soviet archives. The best book I have read along these lines is The Chief Culprit by Victor Suvorov, published by Naval Institute Press (2008). Suvorov’s conclusions are astonishing, and they are backed up by sledge-hammer arguments. Barbarossa and the Wehrmacht’s initial amazing success finally make sense. Now I understand.
Dale Mitchell | Sep 8, 2009 | Reply
To Permendex: Are you posting just to discredit Robert Higgs and this site. You throw in a few actual facts and put out wild remarks. Learn to write a theme and substantiate it like a scholar. This is not Daily Kos!
Eric Westhagen | Sep 8, 2009 | Reply
And another fine myth.
Where do you get your history? Yes, the corporations and military of Germany were instrumental in the rise of the National Socialist Party, but to say that the Western Nations (France, Britain and the United States were instrumental in the rise of Nazi Germany is MYTH. If you do not know that the United States declared that individuals and groups supporting either German, Italian and Russian involvement in the Spanish Civil War were considered illegal and subversive. Also where is your proof that either Great Britain or France wanted anything to do with such involvement?
jcfinley1 | Sep 9, 2009 | Reply
I agree that the books, “Human Smoke,” and “Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War” are classics along with Butler’s “War is a Racket.” John Toland’s and Harry Elmer Barnes’s works are excellent too.
Hitler was in a position similar to the American Indian chiefs...what to do about unifying the German people to withstand huge external and internal threats to their existence. Also, I find it interesting that Americans worship Abe Lincoln for fighting to preserve (reunify) the Union, while they condemn Hitler for reuniting large portions of the German speaking people without firing a shot. Japan also attempted to fortify itself against centuries of colonialism by becoming a colonial power itself, using methods similar to the largest colonial powers in the world at that time, The British Empire, Russia, France, and the U.S.
The wars were mostly about economics, but jealousy no doubt played a large role as well. Churchill, the adventure seeking dandy, was itching to put the “little corporal” in his place. Hitler was a runaway success in getting Germany out of the Great Depression while the big boys were mired deep in it. Germany was a rising industrial power, too, and that meant serious competition. Roosevelt was probably in it for mostly economic reasons, although his administration was infiltrated by Reds. (I think it’s also interesting and significant that his maternal grandfather, Warren Delano II, made tons of money running drugs to the Orient as well as selling morphine derivatives to the Union Army during the War Between the States.) Stalin was in it for the power. He was by far the most brutal of them all.
Bottom line, a few profited at the expense of many. In the net, nothing good came of any of it.
jeff zervas | Sep 15, 2009 | Reply
It is always a source of irritation to me that the (surviving) veterans of WW2 do not have a sense of remorse for the destruction of what was essentially their own civilization. They also seem to have absolutely no feelings at all for the policy of bombing civilians. To this day these men have very little sympathy for the victims of their terror campaigns. Call me old-fashioned, but I thought you gained honor by meeting your enemy on the field of battle...not by sneaking up on your enemy’s house and murdering his family. I guess that’s the way Sherman would have done it.
Epiminondas | Sep 15, 2009 | Reply
Nobody wants war, least of all the men who have to stand in harm’s way. It sickens me to see how rapidly some people forget the events of history or, worse, twist them to their own political agendas.
How many of you were spoiling for blood following the events of 9/11? Can you imagine how you would’ve felt if that attack had destroyed not just a building, but half of the U.S. Navy? If your friends were regularly coming home in boxes? If the enemy you fought had been massacring civilians for a decade beforehand? If Americans had been dying for years and there could be no end to it without a million more dead? Would you really shrink from using a promising weapon whose least humane properties were not yet even understood?
The Japanese waged total war. They shot at parachutes. They beheaded civilians and captive soldiers alike. They held prisoners in contempt. Their brutality was legendary, and the fact that there were ANY Americans who suffered remorse for the bombing of Japan is a tribute to the civility of our culture. But it is misplaced sympathy.
The fire bombings of Japanese cities did far more damage than either A-bomb, but no one second guesses them. It was, simply, the most cost-effective way to cripple the Japanese war machine. Japanese industry was very low tech and widely decentralized, with production being dispersed among the population. There were no isolated military targets to hit, nor did we possess the technology to do so accurately.
The Germans reaped a whirlwind of their own making, as well. They INVENTED the bombing of civilian populations. They brazenly sank the ships of neutral nations. They enthusiastically voted for Hitler, despite his obvious and well-documented agenda of virulent racism and warlike intentions. And they did all this despite month after month of European diplomatic efforts to avoid war with them.
Was everyone killed in the Axis powers during WW2 deserving of death? Of course not. War is an ugly thing, and innocents die en masse. More civilians died in this war than in any war beforehand. But this was not because our parents and grandparents were cowardly or stupid or immoral. It was because the technology of war had advanced to the point that our own weapons dictated the sort of war we would fight. We waged war on factories (including their civilian and often slave labor) because that was the only way to stop the weapons from being made...the very same weapons that would have been just as mercilessly used on us had we not done so.
War is dehumanizing by its very nature, and those who fight it rapidly learn to depersonalize their opponent or break down completely. (Many do so, anyway, years later) It does not mean they are monsters. They have simply chosen to put there more humane impulses aside in the interests of protecting the people they cherish. Perhaps a sociopathic few bear no burden of guilt, but I suspect most soldiers do, even if they do not wish to talk about it.
A burden that can only be that much heavier when their thankless descendants so readily disregard their sacrifices.
I am ashamed of those of you who do.
Fritz | Oct 14, 2009 | Reply
Thank you.
After reading the awful nonsense in this discussion, particularly the Nazi-excusing, anti-Semitic whitewash, I am thankful to see a strong statement I agree with.
Thank You Fritz | Aug 31, 2010 | Reply
How is simply facing the truth that the Allies also committed war crimes on a mass scale against civilians in WWII a “Nazi-excusing, anti-Semitic whitewash?”
Micheal | Nov 23, 2010 | Reply
Remember who said, “It’s a good thing that war is so terrible, or we might learn to love it”, while passing an opposing wounded solder in agony.
T. Mann | Jan 5, 2011 | Reply
Fritz,
There are two kinds of war criminals, the ones who have already been widely acknowledged as such, and those yet to be.
Stalin & Hitler belong to the former category, whereas Winston Churchill belongs to the latter.
I suggest you read Advance to Barbarism by Frederick J. P. Veale (revised editions, post 1962), through which you will discover that since May 11th, 1940, the R.A.F was deliberately targeting the workers´ houses and the workers and their families themselves, and not the factories in which they worked.
Please read about the Lindemann´s plan and the concept of Area Bombing (= the highest carnage per ton of explosives). Then you will understand that the reason why 70% of the deaths in WWII is made out of civilians is due to the advance to barbarism and not the advance in lethal technologies.
Sad, very sad, but true.
Hans Niemandwitz | Mar 13, 2011 | Reply
After the conclusion of WWII, the United States had a golden moment of opportunity to provide true leadership and empower emerging nations and destroy colonialism and imperialism. As Eleanor Roosevelt said “a fresh, new wind blows...” Sadly, as America filled the global leadership void, the federal government became immersed in the Cold War and that golden opportunity was gone. We became involved in SE Asia,we alienated the Arabs, we became the Imperialists and now our own nation is increasingly totalitarian. It’s tragic.
Catherine Feher | Oct 24, 2012 | Reply
Catherine, We would suggest that both Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelts were supporters of global hegemony for the U.S. government through the U.N., and neither of them were friends of either peace or liberty:
“FDR: The Man, the Leader, the Legacy,” by Ralph Raico
“FDR Goes to War: How Expanded Executive Power, Spiraling National Debt, and Restricted Civil Liberties Shaped Wartime America,” by Robert Higgs
“How U.S. Economic Warfare Provoked Japan’s Attack on Pearl Harbor,” by Robert Higgs
“Back to the Land: Arthurdale, FDR’s New Deal, and the Costs of Economic Planning, by C. J. Maloney,” reviewed by Sanford Ikeda
“Franklin Roosevelt Rerevisionism,” by Anthony Gregory
David J. Theroux | Oct 26, 2012 | Reply