| | There are some important points about the events leading up to American involvement in World War II that often get overlooked.
Britain and France were not originally targeted for conquest by Hitler. His dreams of conquest were to the East--through Eastern Europe, Poland, Checkoslovakia, into the vast empty expanses of Soviet Russia. There is plenty of evidence for this observation, made by plenty of historians. Hitler wrote about his eastward ambitions in Mein Kampf; and military observers during the thirties concluded that his military buildup was tailored for rapid expansion across the plains and steppes of Russia, rather than for an assault on heavily fortified France and Western Europe. Furthermore, Hitler attempted more than once to negotiate a peace treaty with Britain and France that would reconize Britain's dominance on the seas, that would leave intact British and French colonial possessions taken from Germany at the conclusion of WWI, and that would place Western Europe off limits to German expansion. In exchange, Hitler demanded a free hand in his plans for military invasion to the East. Churchill declined the offer.
Under Chamberlain, the British had in fact pursued a policy of neutrality with regard to Germany's determination to expand into Eastern Europe and Russia. Chamberlain reasoned that the only means of stopping Hitler's eastward ambitions was a three way alliance, consisting of Britain, France, and Soviet Russia. But France had been exhausted by the First World War, which had killed off a huge percentage of her young men, and so was reluctant to challenge Hitler's eastward expansion. Stalin offered oily assurances to Chamberlain, of his love for peace, and of his disinterest in new European possessions. But Chamberlain was mistrustful, knowing full well that Stalin's record was bloody and treacherous on a scale, even at that time, unprecedented in history. Chamberlin reasoned that if Hitler invaded Eastern Europe and Russia, then the two Totalitarian Devils could fight themselves into exhaustion, while Britain and France conserved their resources for any subsequent confrontation.
Unfortunately, Chamberlain lost courage under heated and repeated political attacks by Churchill and other British war hawks. And so, when Hitler chose to interpret the munich agreement as a renunciation by britain and France of any further interest in Eastern Europe, as opposed to the Allied interpretation that the agreement represented the final settlement of Germany's territorial claims in the wake of Versailles, Chamberlain reversed direction. This reversal consisted of a guarantee issued to Poland against attack--a guarantee that neither Britain or France had the military capability to enforce. It is reasonable to conclude that, had Britain and France been willing to disengage from eastern Europe, leaving the area as a battleground for the looming clash between Hitler and Stalin, that Britain and France would could have remained out of the war.
One reason for Churchill's enthusiasm for locking horns with Hitler, aside from Churchill's infatuation with the "romance" of war, including of World War One, was FDR's active telegraphing of his support. On two occasions prior to the outbreak of hostilities, FDR sent secret emmisaries to Britain and France offering illegal assurances that the United States would inevitably join them in their fight against Germany. This would have come as a surprise to American voters, who had reelected Roosevelt to a third term on his promise of No War, and who consistently opposed American invovement in Europe's quarrels by lopsided 85 or 90 to 10 margins.
After Germany broke through the French line neart Sedan in 1940, the German army drove to the rear of the British and French forces, rendering their strategic position hopeless and forcing their retreat into the sea at Dunkirk. Some French and most the british troops managed to evacuate across the Channel, but at the cost of abandoning their heavy equipment. The disaster would have been worse had not Hitler issued direct orders to his armoured divisions to refrain from attacking Dunkirk during the three day evacuation. As one of Hitler's key staff members, General Blummentritt, later wrote, the German officers were astonished at Hitler's expression of admiration for the British Empire, of the civilization that britain had brought the world, of his desire to forge peace with Britain that would recognize Germany's position on the Continent.
On another occasion, when the Allied military fortunes were at low ebb and France appealed for armistice, von Ribbontrop expressed to Italian Foreign Minister Count Cieno that Hitler did not desire the destruction of the British Empire, which was a source of stability in the world; that the Fuher wanted to negotiate a peace with Britain.
After Dunkirk, Hitler again appealed to Churchill for a negotiated peace, and pressed his appeal through private diplomatic overtures through Sweden, the US and the Vatican. But Churchill refused, for his object was not to save the British navy and preserve the Empire, but to destroy Hitler and reconquer the Continent. Germany began bombing London in September, 1940, in reprisal for England's six successive night attacks on Berlin civilian populations. Soon after Churchill's refusal to negotiate peace, Hitler commenced Operation Sea Lion, a hastily arranged invasion plan that gathered a wide assortment of civilian fishing boats, barges, etc. to cross the Channel. Hitler had no previous plans for an invasion of England across the Channel, and his gernerals thought Operation Sea Lion was lunacy. After Germany failed to dominate in the air over Britain, prior to American Lendlease, Hitler abandoned his half-hearted invasion preparations, and threw his army at his primary goal: the invasion of Stalin's Soviet Union.
After the fall of Germany, no evidence was discovered in official Nazi archives of any plans to invade the United States. Hitler was incapable of invading Great Britain across 70 miles of the English Channel. The idea that Hitler's socialist Germany was in a position to menace American freedom, across 3,000 miles of the Atlantic Ocean, is absurd.
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