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Book Review: Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, by Patrick J. Buchanan. Published by Crown Publishers, 2008. Does anyone else ever get the impression that Pat Buchanan, in his role as a conservative pundit and writer, is somehow trying to be an antiquated version of a modern shock-jock? He seems to always be saying or writing something that is calculated to elicit strong reaction. A case in point is his conversation with Dennis Miller the other day on Dennis' radio show. Buchanan was on the show, of course, in order to hawk his new book. Allow me to point out that I was driving while I was listening, so I may have not have caught every nuanced detail of the conversation between Dennis and Buchanan. But I got the impression that Pat thought that the Jews had a pretty good life in pre-World War II Germany right up until Kristallnacht (You will recall that Kristallnacht was the night of November 9-10, 1938, when Nazis, in response to the assassination of Third Secretary Ernst vom Rath by a Jew, assaulted hundreds of Jews, killed scores by lynching, burned synagogues, and looted shops throughout Jewish communities.). Buchanan's assertion left Dennis nearly speechless with incredulity. Of course, Buchanan's controversial remarks had their desired effect: I purchased and read his new book. After reading the book, I have come to the conclusion that either Buchanan did not accurately communicate his position on the Dennis Miller show, or I misunderstood him. The position that Buchanan takes in Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War concerning Kristallnacht and the German treatment of Jews before and during World War II is as follows: While Jews were certainly mistreated in a Germany ruled by Hitler, the first time that they were actually killed was Kristallnacht. Jewish genocide did not occur in Germany until after the outbreak of World War II hostilities, and so, according to Buchanan's logic, the holocaust would never have occurred if Churchill had not insisted on going to war over Hitler's invasion of Poland.
I was discussing this book with my son, who quickly pointed out the ill-informed nature of Buchanan's thinking. He pointed out that genocide is never an event that suddenly occurs when it's perpetrators wake up one morning and decide to immediately begin killing members of an offending race or ethnicity. Indeed, there is a well-documented, eight-stage process in the move towards genocide and this process has been identified by Gregory Stanton, president of Genocide Watch. The eight stages are classification, symbolization, dehumanization, organization, polarization, preparation, extermination, and denial. I will not go into the detailed explanation of each of these stages here. You can look at the explanations on the Genocide Watch web site. But there can be no doubt that long before Kristallnacht, and long before Germany's invasion of Poland, Hitler's Germany had already completed the first six stages of the genocide process. Hitler needed only the confusion of a war to cover his completion of the final two stages. Buchanan's theory, that the holocaust might have been avoided if Britain had not honored their commitment to Poland, is just ill-informed, pollyannaish thinking. Further to the issue of Germany's invasion of Poland, Buchanan makes the statement that, “Had Britain not given the war guarantee, and not declared war over Poland, Western Europe might have avoided war altogether.” There is something to be considered in what Buchanan says. We know that Hitler had plans to invade Russia, for he candidly stated his intentions in Mein Kampf. It is quite possible that, with Poland as his launching pad, Hitler would have gone to war with Russia, and Western Europe may have been spared. But if Hitler were fighting a single-front war with Russia, and had no worries about bombing England, nor fears of being harassed on a daily basis by American and English bombers, nor need to divert resources for building and manning u-boats to deal with the American and English navies, is it not just as a possible that Hitler would have been victorious in Russia despite the cruel winter, and in addition, would have been successful in developing a nuclear bomb and jet fighters and bombers? As it turns out, Wellington's words at Waterloo could be equally applied here: “it was a near run thing.” The Germans were very close to having a nuclear bomb and very close to having jet-propelled planes when they were defeated, and I think that Western Europe would indeed have been a very different place had Hitler been successful in developing those two tools of war, but the difference would not have been what Buchanan naively envisions. I would suggest that in avoiding war, Western Europe would have assured Hitler's success and their own future enslavement. Buchanan becomes even more pollyannaish, if that is possible, when he discusses the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of 1902. In 1922, England decided to forgo renewing this alliance with Japan, and England's decision was largely as a result of pressure from the United States. Buchanan agrees with historian Arthur Herman when he says, “Only naval ties with Britain kept Japan on a course of propriety and rule of law, and constrained it's thirst for empire.” Prior to England's decision against renewing their treaty, Japan's thirst for empire had not been constrained in Korea, Taiwan, Manchuria, the Liaodong Peninsula, the Marshall Islands, the Caroline Islands, and the Mariana Islands. It is naïve to think that a piece of paper was going to constrain Japan's thirst for an empire which would eventually include China, Singapore, Hong Kong, the Philippine Islands, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Borneo, Maylaya, Sarawak, and New Guinea. Up until 1942, Japan's thirst for empire was never constrained by anything other than a lack of time and the resources, and after 1942 their thirst was constrained by Allied forces. In his headlong effort to discredit Churchill, Buchanan attempts to place far too much importance on the Anglo-Japanese treaty. And to be sure, Buchanan's main goal in writing his book is to disabuse people of the notion of the greatness of Winston Churchill. In the opening lines of the book, Buchanan says, “There has arisen among America's elite a Churchill cult.” I am not certain that the admiration of Churchill has achieved cult status, but I understand Buchanan's point. Churchill has taken on something of almost a mythic status, and is revered as a great leader. I believe that much of Churchill's elevated status is due to Martin Gilbert's book, Churchill: A Life, published in 1991. I know that a great deal of my personal opinion was based upon Gilbert's book, and now that I have read Buchanan's book, I realize that Gilbert's book can be more accurately described as an homage, rather than an objective historical account. Gilbert presented all of the positive and very little of the negative aspects of Churchill's character. Buchanan's book is significant in that it provides a more realistic picture of Churchill. No one can doubt Churchill's oratory skills, nor his leadership skills. He was fearless. But Buchanan documents the many errors in judgment, the irrational prejudices, and the poor decision-making of Churchill. After reading this book, my opinion of Churchill has changed greatly. But I would caution the reader in approaching Buchanan's work as objective, as his isolationist biases are prevalent throughout. He writes the book as a strong invective against Churchill with the objective of pointing out that President Bush, like Churchill, is trying to make the world safe for democracy. In Buchanan's isolationist perspective, the world needs to be safe for America, and democracy for the countries of the Middle East should be no concern of America's. In referring to the current Iraqi war, Buchanan states that the “Churchill cult gave us our present calamity.” I am not certain that Buchanan's isolationist viewpoint is all bad. There is certainly something to be said for the idea of American blood being shed only in the protection of America. Many of us have wondered about the wisdom of America's involvement in places like Somalia, Bosnia, and Lebanon. Others of us have further wondered about our non-involvement in Darfur, and about our current deployment of Marines in the Philippine island of Mindanao. I think that Buchanan's isolationist perspective may be just a bit too glib, but I also admit that it has it's appeal. In spite of the Buchanan bias, Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War is a well-written, thoroughly-documented book that provides a fresh perspective on the causes of World War II. I highly recommend the book.
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