A top party leader and associate of German Chancellor Angela Merkel is under fire this week for arguing that Poland may have been as responsible as Hitler for the outbreak of World War II. Erika Steinbach said Poland had mobilized its troops months before the Nazis invaded in September 1939.
Steinbach, 67, announced that she would leave the leadership of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Party
Steinbach is the daughter of a German army officer who served in Nazi-occupied Poland and at a meeting of the Christian Democratic (CDU) party pointed out that Poland mobilized its troops in March 1939 — six months before any attack by Hitler.
Of course, the Poles stayed within their borders as opposed to the Germans who invaded the country and ultimately killed over 6 million Poles — over 15 percent of its population.
Then of course there is the rest of Europe that was invaded . . . but that might have been due to the threat of mobilization.
Source: BBC
AY,
… and presidents who claim to be Ivy League trained constitutional lawyers … aren’t
Wasn’t Bushes degrees from Ivy League Schools….You see…anybody with money can get one…..You don’t have to be smart….just well heeled….
… and/or paper Wall Street with degrees from Ivy League Schools of Business
Well it has always been my impression that the election of Lincoln meant that the Corporate Masters of the Slavery business knew they were going to have a real problem setting up franchises in the new territories thus cutting into expected huge profits.
Having a willing class of people who would never have the where with all to own a slave but who liked to think that one day they’d win the lottery and be able to buy a few, gave these big boys a lot of little boys who readily fell for “The Cause” spin. Lots of lies, lots of spin and lots of death followed resulting in the eventual closing of all slave franchises and leaving only the myth of “The Cause” standing.
Today, the intellectual descendants of those idiots use a lot of tea bags.
Leah and D.R.B.,
Good points.
Leah, good post.
Someone here at the blog as actually talked about the “northern aggression” in the Civil War. There are legions of neo-confederates out there who blame the war on the Americans, not on the rebels who started it.
As a matter of fact, all that the United States did to the rebels was to lawfully elect Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency.
That’s it.
That is all that happened.
Lincoln pledged to not to interfere with slavery where it existed, BECAUSE THE CONSTITUTION GAVE HIM ABSOLUTELY NO POWER TO DO SO.
He did favor trying to get CONGRESS to ban slavery in the territories, but that was because THE CONSTITUTION EXPRESSLY SAID THAT CONGRESS HAD POWER TO MAKE ALL NEEDFUL RULES AND REGULATIONS RESPECTING THE TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES. Article IV, section 3.
And all the States that purported to secede had unanimously agreed to that Clause in that Constitution.
Those States were fully represented in the Congress.
Moving on, Germany and the Austrian-Hungarian Empire blamed World War I on “aggression” by Serbia.
A lot of Americans blamed the attack Pearl Harbor on the Americans.
That fool, I.F. Stone, blamed the the naked aggression of North Korea and the Soviet Union in the Korean War on the Americans in his book, Hidden History of the Korean War.
Plenty of folks are now, today, September 11, 2010, blaming the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center on the Americans.
As Bluto once said, was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?
Hell, no!
Was it over when Poland bombed Berlin?
Hell, no!
Was it over when Lincoln bombed Fort Sumter?
Hell, no.
Some points.
1. Steinbach neither said not implied that Poland was responsible in any degree for the outbreak of World War II. She said only that Poland had mobilized forces six months before the German invasion. The suggestion that this somehow means Poland was responsible for the outbreak of the war is all words put in her mouth by her critics.
2. Poland wasn’t responsible for being attacked by Germany. After Germany overran Austria, invaded Czechoslovakia, and made open threats to invade the city of Gdansk, which it had ceded to Poland under the Treaty of Versailles, mobilizing forces was the only responsible thing any Polish leader could have done.
3. The Polish government was responsible for collaborating with Nazi aggression against Czechoslovakia; indeed, rather than defend the Czechs, the Polish government opportunistically bit off a chunk of Czechoslovakia for itself. Ironically, Polish leaders thereby helped dig their own people’s graves, as their encouragement of German occupation of Czechoslovakia helped the Wehrmacht outflank the Polish army on the south when the Germans attacked Poland the next year.
Gingerbaker
1, September 11, 2010 at 11:55 am
In other news, a Papal spokesman suggests “provocatively-dressed” altar boys partially responsible for invasion of their own borders.
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lol … Kimosabe, who is this masked humorist?
In other news, a Papal spokesman suggests “provocatively-dressed” altar boys partially responsible for invasion of their own borders.
Leah:
“The Gleiwitz incident was a staged attack by Nazi forces posing as Poles on 31 August 1939, against the German radio station Sender Gleiwitz in Gleiwitz, Upper Silesia, Germany (since 1945: Gliwice, Poland) on the eve of World War II in Europe.
This provocation was the best-known of several actions in Operation Himmler, a Nazi Germany SS project to create the appearance of Polish aggression against Germany, which would be used to justify the subsequent invasion of Poland.”
I guess the Germans learned a thing or 2 from Jeff Davis.
Next she’ll blame the horses those Polish officers rode …
Leah, good post.
Since like most idiots who make pre-judgments Steinbach fails to mention that the Polish Mobilization was one of Calvary troops, which were predominantly horse soldiers. I’m such this mobilization had the NAZI Blitzkrieg shaking, not from fear but from giggling hysteria.
The ability of people who insist “facts” be made to fit their own pre-judgments, to rationalize anything is unlimited. Who knows what she really believes in her mind but is too politic to utter publicly.
Reminds me of the “Tea Baggers,” Sarah Palin and most of the Republican Party. Haley Barber came close last week to really laing out what they discuss and believe privately.
This is not exactly a new concept. In 1861 Southern rebels looted federal arsenals, took possession of inadequately defended federal forts, and (correct me if I’m wrong) I believe they even raided the U.S. Mint. In all these places they helped themselves to whatever was there that they wanted…especially guns, cannons and ammunition. And all this time they claimed that all they wanted was to be “left alone.” Finally, in April, 1861 the newly formed Confederacy in Montgomery (with the help of P.G.T. Beauregard and a few others)began firing on Fort Sumter, another poorly defended federal installation. After Anderson surrendered Sumter a few days later, President Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteers, and the South went ballistic, and to this day many of them claim that Lincoln started the Civil War. On Civil War internet forums, it is a rare thing to be unable to find at least one thread asking the very important question of “what Lincoln could have done to prevent that war?” I don’t think I’ve ever seen a thread asking what Jefferson Davis could have done to prevent war. Therefore, I can’t see any reason that a German cannot claim that Poland was not responsible for all the carnage that befell them when kindly, well-intended old Hitler felt he had to strike first to protect the rest of Europe. Whose gonna believe her anyhow?
“I am beginning to get the impression that you can’t say what you want in Germany any more, even if one is talking about facts,” is how the veteran right-winger (Ms. Steinbach) responded to criticism from within her own party and its liberal coalition partners about her remarks.
Gosh, that sounds familiar. Seems very like a lady talk show host, recently. Dr. … Dr. … Dr. Laura! That’s it.
What a great concept. The next time I say something stupid, I plan to use it.
good grief
rcampbell,
Sig Heil, Sig Heil….(as the jack boots heels’ click together, the right forearm stretched out in a 90 degree angle, with the fingers extended outright and thumb folded to the middle of the palm)….
Maybe Erika is a founding member of the German Tea Party?
AY
Or was the Bush/Cheney/Rove cabal the all too willing students of Der Furher’s well honed tactics as many of us felt at the time?
If I defend myself I am responsible for you invasion….what? It is early, I may not fully understand this story…but did they go to the Bush School Of Political Phili-sychopathy as mentored by Herr Rove…the distinguished fellow….