William Tyler
Dreams Shattered
Summary
One can argue that once Hitler took power in 1933, WWII was all but inevitable. Hitler wanted to see Germany as the dominant European power and to be rid of the shame of defeat in WWI. As war drew closer and he observed the policy of appeasement in Britain and France, he pushed against the Versailles settlement. First the Germans occupied the Rhineland, then came the Anschluss with Austria, and finally the invasion of Czechoslovakia.
Only with the invasion of Poland did Hitler turn his attention to the low countries, Scandinavia, France, and Britain. Unlike in WWI, Britain was forced out of France at Dunkirk, and France surrendered in the summer of 1940. At this point German success turned into the beginnings of German defeat. Germany was defeated in the Battle of Britain in Russia and then forced backwards by the Red Army. They were defeated in North Africa as well. The tide of events finally turned when The United States entered the war, first in North Africa and then in Europe. Japan, Germany’s ally, was in no position to help as the Americans slowly but surely won the war in the Pacific. The war ending in the Allies’ favour was now just a matter of time. Yet the Germans resisted right up to the end, costing many pointless deaths on both sides.
The war years (1939-45) saw the Nazi regime at its most brutal in occupied Europe. They committed barbaric acts against both military and civilian populations. The nadir of their barbarism resulted in the Shoah and the murder of 6 million European Jews.
We teach in our schools about this war and Nazism, not from the point of view of victory, but as a brutal lesson of how even in the middle of the 20th century such evil could spawn across our continent and threaten the wider world.
William Tyler
William Tyler has spent his entire professional life in adult education, beginning at Kingsgate College in 1969. He has lectured widely for many public bodies, including the University of Cambridge and the WEA, in addition to speaking to many clubs and societies. In 2009, William was awarded the MBE for services to adult education, and he has previously been a scholar in residence at the London Jewish Cultural Centre.
No, war would’ve come. It may have come later and we might have been better prepared, but no, there would be no way. But Chamberlain was unable to give the leadership in war at the Norwegian campaign. He was a broken man. In fact, of course, as you probably know, he was dying of cancer in 1940s, dead by the end of the year. The source of arms capital is borrowed from Switzerland, as we said. It’s also within Germany itself. It’s taxation, it’s the utilisation of the whole state to produce this war machine.
Oh, well, people always want to say, “Oh no, he’s not really dead. He’s living in South America. I saw him when I went on holiday.” No, no, no, he definitely did. It was the Russian’s fault for getting rid of the evidence. But the evidence subsequently came out because they’d saved jaw and stuff.