Thomas777 and Pete Quinones - The Revisionist Dialogues

Volume 1 - World War II, Origins and Historical Realities

PETE

               Many good historians believe that the Treaty of Versailles led up to World War II. What's your take on that?

THOMAS

That certainly is what created the political culture of Weimar. It was an essential catalyst, but it wasn't the sole proximate cause. That was the Bolshevik Revolution, which was an international phenomenon. I don't want to jump the gun or go too far into a theoretical topic that's not material to what we’re talking about.

I cite Ernst Nolte a lot because he gets into the, psychological as well as kind of the meta-historical context of the war. People don't like him for many reasons. I'm not going to flesh out all the reasons right here. Not because it's controversial, but because again, I don't want to.

PETE

I've read two of his books. I think I understand why.

THOMAS

               People who attacked him emphasized how the Russian Revolution was happening in Moscow and St. Petersburg and to a lesser degree in the frontier territories of the Baltics. It's not true. Those were primary theaters, but in Bavaria, there was an actual communist revolution. In Berlin the communists were fighting the army and the Freikorps in the street. There’s this TV movie from about 20 years ago called Hitler Rise of Evil. It's got Peter Stromere as, as Captain Rohm. I mean, that's an overwrought title if there ever was one Rise of Evil.

There's a scene in Munich the communists are shooting it out with Peter Stromere as Rohm. That's not Hollywood stuff. That happened; it was a civil war situation. It became clear, the Allies weren't interested in, in creating a workable political order that the former combatant states could live with, they were, and they were interested in looting Germany.

               In order to understand National Socialism and understand the 20th century generally, you've got to understand communism and you got to understand the fact that was a revolutionary paradigm underway. As Nolte said, a European civil war was underway.

The treaty conditions were such that it should be indisputable war was inevitable.  Wherever you fall on the issue, even if you a have punitive view of Germany it’s obvious

I've gone to bat for Wilson before not because I think Wilson was a good man or he was a great president. You can't hang responsibility for Versailles on Wilson. His 14 points might seem kind of highfalutin and silly, and from a real political perspective they were. However, Wilson didn't want to punish Berlin.

He was disgusted by the treaty of Versailles and he threw his hands up when  he realized that, after  he bailed out London and Paris they paid him back by taking the  chance to loot Germany and not remedy the, the conditions that gave rise to war in the first place.

So yeah, that argument is correct. It’s important not to reduce the situation just to that. Writers like Ian Kershaw, say Adolf Hitler was a con man who just capitalized on these middling grievances.  Terms were tailored to wreck the German economy.

 That was his point. Those crazy German chauvinists just decided to fixate on the terms of peace for no reason. You’re going to provoke some kind of reaction if you impose something like that on a nation. Why would you do that? Even if you hate the Germans or you just don't care about their fortunes as a people. If you're going to subject people to a starvation regime you're not looking forward to a workable piece. You're going to just generate structural instability.

PETE

               It seems that Weimar, one of the easiest ways to destroy it was the way they always do it through the banks.

THOMAS

               People think they're being smart, you when they, they cite Smedly Butler and say war is just about Wall Street. It's not true. Wars are bad for business. The fact that the fact firms and individual men who find ways to profit from war is immaterial. The fact that there are guys like Dick Cheney and Halliburton, where that's their MO, is immaterial. There are guys, on the make in all kind of sectors of political life. Wall Street is never shit hot to go to war as some way to make money.

At the same time, as crazy as it might sound to us, because we take informational awareness for granted. There was a strong financial aspect to the Great War as regards America and JP Morgan. They extended a huge amount of unsecured credit to the British crown. The British had essentially sent a diplomatic delegation of high-flying banker to Wall Street in 1915. A quagmire was sitting in and they gathered huge unsecured line of credits. The delegates said:  “Look, in just a few months, we'll have broken the back of the German war machine and then we're all going to get paid. “ When it became clear that wasn't going to happen, JP Morgan got on the phone with Colonel House and Wilson. He said, “You fix this right now!  You are not going to let London lose this war and you're not going to let us eat this loss.” That wasn't the sole reason why Wilson went to war, but it was a big part of it. There was a lot of very corrupt stuff going on.  It was more opaque than what happened in the Second World War.

People lie about the Second World War and say crazy things about it. There are ethno sectarian narratives about it that are nakedly political. Those are clear cut. The Great War doesn't make a lot of sense. It was a strange example of security paradigms not matching up with the technology of the day. The killing technology met with a basic failure of deterrence. That’s why it's really interesting, frankly.

The War Between the States screwed up in America for decades. America didn't normalize until the turn of the century. But Europe after Waterloo didn't fight any major wars. I mean, there's the Crimean War, but that was of localized in theater, like in literally the Crimea. There was also the Franco-Prussian War, which was this incredible German victory. I realize Prussia wasn't Germany yet, but the modern German state was the Prussian state until 1945, in my opinion. The point is, it's not like Europe had fought heavy conflicts in the 19th century and developed a sense of what that modern battlefield was going to look like. Specifically how it was going to impact national economies and create shortages and how it was t going to slaughter people.

I think the German High Command, the Kaisereich, had a better idea of how things were going to develop. That’s one of the reasons why Hollweg, the chancellor, was beside himself when it became clear that France was going to war. I think he, despite the fact he wasn't a military man, knew that a slaughter was going to happen.

If you read the kind of internal memorandums or what amounts to internal memorandums,  and the  internal debate and discussion in London and in Paris, and you’ll agree with me. Within the Czar’s inner circle it’s a bit more complicated. But these guys didn't get it. They thought this was going to be kind of a brush fire affair. They thought the Germans wanted to force some concessions on their key demands. The plan was to fight for a little while, and then come to the table from a position of strength. That’s not the way the Kaisereich saw it. They certainly didn't think that they were going to lose, a million people. But they didn't think it was going to be an endless destructive affair.

PETE

               So what most people know about Weimar is there are two things. That it became degenerate and the money supply got inflated to the point you’d need a wheelbarrow full of money to buy a loaf of bread. What was going on there?

THOMAS

               The starvation blockade endured past the cessation of hostilities. As far as the moral deviancy is concerned, it wasn’t orchestrated as was the case post-1945. The Bundesrepublik and particularly West Berlin was flooded with pornography after the Second World War. Wilhelm Reich was this he was a German Jewish psychologist. He wrote about that about breaking the moral foundation of people to make them malleable. After the first war, it is more about boring than people think; there wasn't intentional subversion in that regard.

I generally agree with the E. Michael Jones, what he wrote about this. I'm not going too far afield because it's material to what we're talking about in a direct way.  De Sade considered himself to be a political thinker. He wasn't just a sick individual, or a degenerate aristocrat. He wasn’t just writing pornography and writing about sex, because that's what kind of decadent aristocrats do. I mean, yeah, that is what they do. He was widely publishing this stuff because his notion was that, the foundation of what he despised about France and Europe generally is the throne and alter sensibility. Roman Catholicism props up the seed of sovereignty and the monarchy and, it derived its authority and legitimacy from a claim that it reflects providential design. The basis of that system is preeminence of reason over passion. It wasn’t simply that, de Sade hated females and he didn't, or that he was a simple homosexual. He wanted to screw with people's morals and horrify them.  The Marque’s idea was to get people to cease privileging reason over passion.  “I just want to do things that feel good. I want to pursue sexually deviant stuff.  Why should I be a family man when I can visit prostitutes or, why would I want to be involved with women when I can, go with men and just kind of do whatever I want.”  This idea that sexuality and social morals aren't political is nonsense.

So yeah that was part of it. In Germany it wasn't just the far-right guys noticing this. People were cognitive of these things in those days. Not because they were prudes or they weren't worldly. If anything, people then were more worldly.  The facts of life and death were commonplace occurrences. Millions of guys were milling about in Germany, who’d spent their formative years in the military. The idea that Germany was this provincial place where everyone freaked out about sex is ridiculous.

They saw what was going on in terms of subversion. The National Socialists, for better or worse were not conservatives and they didn't pretend to be. The reason why guys like Rohm were in the ranks, particularly in the revolutionary phase was because they could fight.  Hitler said, when people objected to these characters in his milieu, something like “Rohm might be a degenerate guy, but he's great under fire.”  I think Hitler said, “The SA is a tough fighting force. It's not the finishing school for young ladies. So I don't give a shit what these guys do when they're off time, as long as they're loyal and they're willing to fight.”  My point is that the national social movement wasn’t popular because they were moralizing conservatives.  They weren’t fixated on pornography and socially deviant things because  they  were uptight conservatives. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with conservatism or objecting those things. Those things are bad. My point is that this stuff is kind of so extreme and so nakedly political, that the National Socialists had to react.  To Jones's point, that kind of stuff is always political. It's never truly secular or incidental political occurrences. It was so nakedly tailored to an attack that kind of prevailing social order and, and things that it, it became a priority to remedy it to the kind of, the kind of radical right, the radical, you know, national socialist right. So yeah, I mean, that's, that's very true.

PETE

               How did the National Socialists arise from Weimar?

THOMAS

               Gustav Stresemann found a way to barely comply with the reparations payments Germany, even when it was at its worst, had capacity to produce. Investors were able to get a return on investment. Stresemann gets a bad rap as Chancellor. I'm not saying he was a good man or that he was on the side of his people, the way he should have been, but he can't just dismiss them as a race traitor. He understood economics very well.  Schumpeter praised him. The point being, Stresemann was able to garner a fair amount of direct foreign investment. The national economy was bouncing back to a degree. Germany was beginning to come to terms with London, not so much in Paris. Then the 1929 financial crisis happened. That threw Germany into a tailspin. All the ground gained evaporated overnight. That put the national socialists back on the map.

The international situation was critical. Around 1929-1930, it started to become clear that the Soviet Union was going to become a superpower.  Even if that term wasn’t commonly understood, people knew it was true.  People understood the power potential of America. Especially the Germans, after they’d fought the Americans. They’d taken the full front of the US army, which is not a fun thing, especially in those days. The power potential of the Soviet Union was apparent. Bolshevism was something of a psychological contagion. I’m not being melodramatic, that’s the best way to describe it.  The conditions of the epochs seem to be favoring communism.

It was all of those things. It wasn't just that the 1929 collapse. The economic collapse didn't just kick people's asses. That happened in every major developed economy. The collapse was especially brutal for the Germans because they’d been making ground in the wake of, you know, the catastrophe of 1918. All of those gains evaporated overnight. And, you know, it was, it was kind of like the final nail in the coffin of people's willingness to, to accept, you know, that there was some sort of like parliamentary democratic solution to their problems.

PETE

Where was Hitler at this time?

THOMAS

Hitler was a pioneer of what became modern campaigning techniques of the 20th century. That's why Triumph of the Will opens up with this aerial shot of Hitler's aircraft descending to the airfield just as it breaches the clouds. That's a cool shot, and the camera work was pretty radical. It wasn't just Hitler trying to flex about how cool he was. Hitler was the first national political figure to travel all over the place in a plane to the campaign face to face. Hitler was campaigned his ass off.

I'm always telling people to read Hitler's unpublished second book. This is called The Second Book; it never actually was a book just a manuscript discovered after the day of defeat. That’s Hitler’s geopolitical book. Mein Kampf is Hitler making his case to the German voter. It’s an argument to vote for the National Socialist Party. You get these losers, like old Chrissy Hitchens or Ian Kershaw, who will say Mein Kampf is a terrible book. It’s not it's not supposed to be Shakespeare. It's written by a man who's, running for political office. It’s Hitler saying why you should vote for his party. That’s not going to be compelling reading a century after the fact.

 That point can't be overstated. People act like the national socialist put like pulled the wool over the electorate’s eyes by pretending to be a political party. They were they were a political party that wanted people to vote for them and people did. They accomplished a parliamentary majority. Their primary opposition was engaged in a war against the legitimate seat of government. It was entirely legitimate to ban the KPD. You don't have to like National Socialism, but unlike the Bolsheviks they didn’t just kill people to get what they wanted. The National Socialists were a legitimate government in Germany.

I don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves. One of the concepts Nuremberg legitimized was this idea that the government in Germany was illegitimate. You could say that it was an evil government, I guess if that turns you on, but it wasn't illegal or illegitimate. The election returns that the National Socialists got were aboveboard. A plebiscite made Hitler Fuhrer. Hitler had something like 89.3% of German voters, who thought he was great. The people loved Adolf Hitler. They didn't love the NSDAP. The key takeaway is that the Germans loved Adolf Hitler, not that they love the party

To answer your question, that's what Adolf Hitler was doing. When he got cut loose from Landsberg Prison, that's what he set about doing. It's an interesting give and take between him and the Weimar government. On the one hand, he and Schubner-Richter and Ludendorff who in those days was still an ally of Hitler, merged into a coalition against the guns of Weimar. But when Hitler found himself in court, they treated him pretty well—not just as a case but with some slack. I think he realized the writing was on the wall, and he wasn't going to duplicate what Mussolini had done in Rome in 1922. Part of that was pragmatic; it wasn't Hitler being a nice guy. Part of it was also the realization that he wouldn't be marginalized by being locked away for 20 years or banned from public life. Continuing a revolutionary course after that would have been steamy and likely counterproductive. It might have worked in the Baltic States, where there was a bloody civil war under conditions of parody. Germany had a localized revolutionary paradigm on the ground, as seen in the Munich Soviet, but they couldn't pull it off nationwide. While most Germans weren't communists, the threat was existential in the international context. If communists carved out fiefdoms in places like Bavaria or controlled the Berlin street, it would have been challenging to resist Soviet designs. Hitler campaigned like a modern politician. He was many things, including a messianic figure historically, though not in religious terms. He wasn't just a typical politician, but he played that role effectively during the 20s.

PETE

Let's delve into the 1930s. You've frequently emphasized the impact of the Bolsheviks. The 1917 revolution casts a long shadow over the entire 20th century. It's a pivotal moment. What often goes unnoticed is the extensive influence and infiltration of European countries by the Bolshevik ideology. While events like the Spanish Civil War stand out, the communist presence extended to nearly every nation. The anti-fascist movements in 1920s Italy provide a clear example.

THOMAS

Certainly, they possessed remarkable momentum. I mean, both in terms of their forces and "being" might not be the right way to characterize it, but they had tremendous reach, especially for that time, you know, a century ago; it wasn't like today.

               I mean, there was more interdependence than people might think. Especially in Europe, people crossed national frontiers pretty much as a matter of course. It's not like there wasn't this kind of monadic insularity to things, but the communists were very good at political warfare. They excelled at waging political war with this cadre structure very effectively, even when they didn't have majorities or even pluralities on the ground. I think part of that stemmed from the radical commitment of the people they had, acting as a force multiplier. But one of the reasons I appreciate Ernst Nolte is not just because he describes the phenomenon during the war and these brutal, categorically homicidal events. It also can't be overstated how communism seemed to have the force of apocalyptic history behind it. Last time you were kind enough to invite me on the podcast, you made the point that people like to criticize James Burnham and other political figures of the era because they talk about communism as a perennial thing with imminent victory. People weren't saying that because they loved Joseph Stalin or thought communism was great. Some did, but after the 1929 collapse, it wasn't just an economic crisis you deal with during deteriorating world situations or punctuated shocks, like shortages or famine, as happened before global food insecurity was remedied in the '50s.

               It was essentially like the banking structure, as it existed at that point, failed. People thought, "Well, capitalism and private industry can't deliver at this scale. It can't provide what people need, and there's too much uncertainty. You can't just leave it in the hands of all these discrete decision-makers that aren't coordinated. So this just doesn't work anymore. Some kind of central planning has to replace the free market." Even right-wing individuals thought that way because they didn't understand the alternative. It wasn't necessarily bad faith; they just didn't grasp it. In the moment, you can't fully understand what's happening in historical terms, especially with something as complex as 20th-century economics. That was underway, and it seemed to everyone, even the man on the European street, that communism had the force of history behind it. It felt like a crusade or some fervor sweeping up millions of people.

               So how do we stop this? That was a significant part of the strategy that Hitler employed. It underscores his point about him being a messianic figure, you know, that was a big aspect. It's fascinating how people often claim that Hitler, this supposed gutter snipe, exploited anti-Semitism, but in reality, he rarely mentioned Jews, even in his early years. I can recall only two speeches where he referred to international Jewry and another one where he talked about Jewish Bolshevism, but that's it.

               He just didn't bring it up. Not because he was afraid of being politically incorrect or upsetting people, but that simply wasn't his orientation. I mean, yeah, Hitler took for granted that if you were a national socialist, you viewed Jews as your mortal enemy. However, the idea that Hitler was getting people clued into his program and excited by talking about Jews is not true. He could argue that it would have been redundant because everybody understood he was talking about Jews, but the shared premises people responded to had to do with him making them believe they wouldn't inevitably be swept up in a mass homicidal workers' revolt. This revolt would transform everything into a giant labor camp where the trappings of national life and social capital had been stripped away, reducing everything to bare survival. Within the administration of that new regime, you wouldn't be privileged; you'd live a pointless life of relative deprivation. The only consolation would be the assurance that if you were politically reliable, you wouldn't starve or lack housing. That's what was truly underway.

               And don't take just my word for it; read Orwell's 1984. Essentially, that Stalinist dystopia, which was the big fear of every European, including even middle-class Tory types like Mr. Orwell, captures the essence. So, this wasn't just some strange notion that paranoid artists or self-styled shaman Mr. Hitler concocted. I can't stress that enough.

 PETE

               You brought up Orwell, and I brought up the Spanish Civil War. So, yeah, the significance of 1932 and 1933 is profound, marking the election of two figures that would fundamentally shape our current landscape. Hitler ascends to power, and the king for life, FDR, takes the helm. As far as I gather, Mr. FDR wasn't exactly averse to what Mussolini or Hitler were discussing in their respective countries, was he?

THOMAS

               I get it. Roosevelt's approach is something that has piqued your interest, and you've previously mentioned Thomas Fleming's critical perspective on him. Fleming, the East Coast Irish historian, offered insightful critiques in his biography, "The New Dealers' War," providing a deeper understanding of Roosevelt and his administration. One of the reasons I liked Thomas Fleming, not the Rockford Institute guy, for clarity, people aren't familiar with the other Thomas Fleming, he was this East Coast Irish guy, and we're not going to hold it against him that he's Irish, because he was a really good author. But he, he was an independent scholar historian, and he, he wrote kind of a seminal critical biography of Roosevelt, as well as of the, of the, of the Roosevelt administration called the New Dealers War.

               Arnold played a significant role in crafting the book, drawing from a diverse range of perspectives within Roosevelt's circles, including allies and adversaries in the diplomatic, State Department, and military realms. The direct testimonies and documents he had access to formed the foundation. Despite Arnold's unfavorable view of Roosevelt, his core thesis aligns with your perspective from our previous discussions. Arnold sees the New Deal regime not merely as a domestic policy but as a revolutionary paradigm akin to actions in Berlin and the Soviet Union. The foreign policy under Roosevelt reflects a progressive socialist and anti-fascist political order, involving a comprehensive restructuring on social and political fronts.

               And in the grand scheme, its primary goal in foreign policy was the obliteration of Germany and the eradication of fascism—its raison d'être. This objective paralleled Hitler's determination to crush Bolshevism. To delve deeper into Hitler's perspective on history, consider his final significant speech before the Reichstag on December 11, 1941, coinciding with the formal declaration of war against the United States. Notably, Hitler omitted any mention of Stalin in this address, merely alluding to communism. Churchill received only a passing, somewhat patronizing reference. The crux of Hitler's focus was directed at Roosevelt, emphasizing two crucial aspects.

               In discussing the eastern situation, particularly the halting of the assault on Moscow, which, in my assessment, marked the turning point of the war, Hitler articulated two key points. Firstly, he contextualized the moment by drawing parallels to 1813, asserting, "we've been through this before." In invoking "we," Hitler referred to the German people as inheritors of the Prussian legacy state. It's worth noting that in 1813, Prussia was aligned with Napoleon in the Russian Empire, being the sole German state to support Napoleon in the conflict.

               This is intriguing and pivotal to comprehending Hitler and why he garnered support not only from his Bavarian compatriots but also from the Prussian officer class and beyond. It wasn't a mere affectation. Additionally, Hitler asserted that the conflict was a European war and resisted the idea of it expanding into a global war. He highlighted the repeated attempts to negotiate with America, emphasizing the lack of shared interests or conflicts between Germany and the United States.

               This essentially boils down to questioning why Roosevelt compelled Germany to engage in warfare with America. One could argue that Germans or Hitler were evil, and it's justified for America to wage war against Germany. However, aligning with the Soviet Union in assaulting Germany altered the dynamics. On September 11, 1941, Roosevelt declared unrestricted naval war against all German-flagged military vessels, marking another significant September 11 in history.

               America entered into conflict with Germany well before any German war declaration and long before the events at Pearl Harbor. This strategic incongruity was not based on logic but rather on an ideological and political decision. For a more in-depth exploration of the dynamics between Hitler and Stalin, there's a somewhat mythic and Manichean aspect to it. The deep-seated enmity between Germany and the Russian people adds a layer of horror and tragedy to the historical narrative.

               I'm not making light of the profound nature of the conflict, but in the Eastern front, Germans were bound to fight, even absent provocations like the Bolsheviks. Hitler's true ideological adversary was Roosevelt because there wasn't any strategic reason for America to fight Germany other than Roosevelt and his patrons' commitment to Germany's annihilation. In political terms, that defines enmity—a confrontation forced upon you by someone who has slated you for destruction based on ideological grounds.

               This is a crucial point often overlooked in discussions about Hitler and his intentions. People frequently discuss Hitler's words and thoughts without actually delving into what he said. David Irving noted that Hitler was a rare 20th-century political figure who essentially carried out everything he proclaimed, lacking a substantial filter. By examining Hitler's public statements, one can trace his strategic decisions and political sensibilities, revealing a straightforward perspective on his political commitments and objectives. It's like people are always talking about what's in the Constitution or what's in the Bible but never actually read either, creating a gap in understanding Hitler's intentions.

PETE

               What I was getting at with FDR is that it's not a secret; many people around him have admitted that during the '30s, when the German economy appeared to be thriving, he observed it. As he implemented the New Deal and issued numerous executive orders, about 3,000 or 4,000 of them, he looked at the German managed economy and thought, "If they can have a managed economy over there, we can have one here."

THOMAS

              
               Oh yeah, that was a significant aspect. Adam Tooze, an economic historian, is a fascinating figure. Economic historians tend to have robust intellects, given the challenging task of writing about the economic history of any modern state. I might not see eye to eye with him on politics, being a typical British university type, but his book, "The Wages of Destruction," offers an exhaustive history of the Third Reich's economy, packed with a vast amount of data.

               To understand National Socialist economics, it essentially aligns with traditional economic principles, reminiscent of Hamilton and Friedrich. There's a bias for heavy industry and mass subsidies, particularly favoring heavy manufacturing. The German economy today isn't radically different; it follows a model closer to Japan than America or the UK. Economists in the '80s used to term it as "picking winners and losers," reflecting a more controlled approach, as seen in Germany. This is highlighted by the Goldman Sachs representative who appeared in Berlin around 2005, featured in a Rolling Stone piece by Matt Taibbi or someone with a similar-sounding name. The piece detailed his encounter and observations during his visit to Berlin, providing insights into the economic dynamics of the time.

               And he started making his pitch, attempting to persuade these German firms to bind up their pension system with something like Goldman Sachs 401ks. I guess these Germans, let me laugh at them or say, "Get out of here. We don't invest in derivatives." That sensibility remains.

               But yeah, that's exactly what Roosevelt did. It's also true that the New Deal didn't actually accomplish much. Politically, it got Roosevelt everything he wanted and had far-reaching consequences. However, fundamentally, Roosevelt didn't stimulate the economy or breathe new life into it. It's not a testament to how demand-side paradigms work or are true. He literally put people to work digging holes for no reason and paid them. There weren't even riots because people couldn't buy a loaf of bread due to lack of work.

               I live down the street from Skokie Lagoons, a large nature preserve. It's pretty cool, but it's a giant man-made lake that Roosevelt had people digging for no reason, just to give them food stamps. That's the story behind it. In other states, you'll come across similar projects built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), like nature preserves or man-made lakes. It's a scaled-up version of these projects.

               I think they teach in public schools that Roosevelt saved the economy by putting people to work. That's not true. If I pay you to dig a hole and give you food stamps, I'm not breathing new life into the economy; I'm just paying you to dig a hole. I haven't set foot in a public school in decades, but I believe that's what they teach. I don't have kids of my own, but I like young people and use them as human intelligence to understand what's happening in public schools.

               Anyway, to your point, if Roosevelt had been anything other than this Zionist guy wanting to destroy Europe in alliance with Moscow, if he was more of an American-first guy undertaking these steps, ruling by executive order, and situating himself as a law unto himself, people would think he was Darth Vader or something.

PETE

               Look at the way they treat the census in Florida

THOMAS

               Exactly, there are people like DeSantis. And unlike Mr. Roosevelt, DeSantis doesn’t have people who disagree with him arrested.

PETE

             Who were Germany’s biggest allies?

THOMAS

               I mean, it's a complicated situation because, prior to that, you've got to look at Germany and Austria as one political culture. I'm not saying that Austrians can't think of themselves uniquely; Austria is very different than Germany proper. However, the reason why the Anschluss was able to go off without a hitch was because of what I just said. After Dollfuss was murdered and Hitler smoothed over that potential in-house crisis, offered Mussolini - offered him the Tyrol region, which was unprecedented. Hitler, being a committed German nationalist, handed German-speaking lands over to Italy as a concession. From 1936-1937 onward, Italy and Rome played a significant role. I believe that Romania was Germany's first and foremost best ally. They committed a large contingent of men to the Eastern Front, and Marshal Antonescu, a holder of the Knights Cross, had Hitler's back, forming a crucial alliance. Romania was essential to Barbarossa, as the staging point for key deployments, showcasing its strategic importance. Romania is not just an insignificant country; it played a key role, which is why it had a unique regime during the Cold War. That summarizes the scope of what you're asking.

PETE

               I lived there for a little while

THOMAS
               I'm sure they have really pretty ladies, and it's a fascinating blend of crazy Slavic and Latin elements. It might sound peculiar, especially coming from a somewhat square Protestant perspective, but I find it genuinely intriguing. I'd love to hear more about that sometime.

Now, coming back to the main topic, Italy, of course, played a significant role, and Romania stands out not just for the unwavering commitment of the Romanians but also due to Marshal Antonescu's honorable and steadfast support. Antonescu, a genuine badass, had Hitler's back. Despite Mussolini's flaws, including his womanizing tendencies and involvement in intrigue, he, like Lenin, displayed political genius. While not well-suited for certain aspects of politics, Mussolini's political soldier qualities were evident. Acknowledging his eccentricities, like whacking his son-in-law Count Gianno, reflects the eccentric side of Latin culture. This is not to pass judgment but to recognize the intriguing dynamics at play.

PETE

               As you mentioned in a recent episode, Mussolini exuded a certain swagger, a confidence that gave him an aura of strength. The average person on the street likely thought Mussolini could handle himself in a fight. That's true, but Hitler didn't possess that same presence.

THOMAS

               It's odd that they became personally really tight because they weren't similar kinds of men, you know, Hitler was an intense guy, but he was very subdued. Hitler made the point he didn't like wearing a uniform. Sometimes he felt it was necessary, as was - as was like particularly during the revolutionary phase. After that Hitler always wore a well-tailored but modest suit, He'd wear a - he’d wears his Iron Cross first class, but his party lapel, like his party badge didn’t feature often. Hitler, he had Eva Braun. She was very beautiful and a lot younger than him, but, she was his only girl.

               He was very different than Mussolini. It’s strange they friends. It's kind of strange. you wouldn't think they would become such close allies, but they did. Hitler took great risks, including, you know, deploying Skorzeny to bail Mussolini out, like literally to spring him from that the Alpine Redoubt where he was in prison.

               I appreciate Hitler, for the reason that, you know, owing to either his sensibility as a combat veteran NCO or just as a political soldier, a lot of Hitler's decisions were informed by his personal loyalties. But Antonescu and, yeah, that's a point that should be elaborated on more. And the Romanians truly fought, fought hard. I mean, they, and they suffered significant losses. You know, their army, while not highly celebrated, faced substantial challenges. Croatia also proved to be a valuable ally of Germany. The Croats, man for man, were likely the best among minor Axis nation soldiers. They were officially incorporated into the forces here, not as an auxiliary formation. The Croats, the only non-German element to breach the gates at Stalingrad, were undeniably formidable. Pavelich was a rare example of excellence in a client regime - in his case the independent state of Croatia. The Ustasha, acting as a client regime of the Third Reich, was a unique occurrence. Berlin, the SD, and particularly Himmler, attempted to insinuate proxy parties, even those lacking on-the-ground support, but Hitler resisted. Speaking of Romania, Antonescu, who quelled the Iron Guard revolt and likely ordered Codreanu's murder, faced conflicting support. The SS provided aid to the Iron Guard, while Berlin considered them enemies of the state. So there was a dissonance between Berlin and the German army on one side, and the SS on the other, regarding the treatment of these groups. This, which is quite perplexing, brings me to the point that the independent state of Croatia is a rare example, owing to the events in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the Chetnik coup on the eve of Barbarossa. Croatia stood as a unique client regime of a national fascist or fascist-type country. So, forgive me if that was too tangential.             

PETE

I'd prefer to postpone delving into the war until our next conversation, but there's a specific question I wanted to ask: Was the limitation in potential European allies due to American influence or Soviet influence? It seems Spain could naturally be an ally, particularly at that point.

THOMAS

Yeah, both Salazar and Franco were intriguing for their own purposes. I mean, I think Franco was kind of an idiot, unlike Salazar, who I think was a great man in many ways. Salazar could do more than just try to strike this tense middle path between the British Empire and the Third Reich; he'd leave. But Franco, I think, was just a moron.

Franco was a great survivor, and obtuse men often are good at surviving, even if they're not good at much else. The way to understand Franco was that the real Phalanges, who were real ardent, vast national socialists or fascists, he sent them off to fight the Soviet Union so that they were out of Spain and hopefully wouldn't come back, and that's kind of what happened. But Franco was a great survivor, and obtuse men often are good at surviving, even if they're not good at much else.

The way to understand Franco was that the real Falangists, who were real ardent, vast national socialists or fascists, he sent them off to fight the Soviet Union so that they were out of Spain and hopefully wouldn't come back, and that's kind of what happened. But Franco was a great survivor, and obtuse men often are good at surviving, even if they're not good at much else. The way to understand Franco was that the real Falangists, who were real ardent, vast national socialists or fascists, he sent them off to fight the Soviet Union so that they were out of Spain and hopefully wouldn't come back, and that's kind of what happened. But Franco was a great survivor, and obtuse men often are good at surviving, even if they're not good at much else.

PETE

Was that because of anti-American sentiment or anti-Soviet sentiment? I assume primarily the latter

THOMAS

I believe people outside of the Germans understood that they were in big trouble with regards to Roosevelt, as he was targeting them for destruction—I speculate, and I think it's pretty well substantiated by statements of other chief executives at the time in Europe. I think America wasn't really on people's radar in the same way prior to the Cold War and before the destruction of Europe and its division between the superpowers. If you were, unless situated in the UK or in Germany, a European head of state or in the executive branch of a European state, in the early 20th century, America wasn't really at the forefront of your thoughts.

Sure, you had a sense of its great power capability, and you knew that its intervention or non-intervention could make or break outcomes, especially in geopolitical terms. But it was just this remote thing. So, yeah, I guarantee you that most foreign fighters who joined the Waffen-SS did so because they wanted to kill Ivan and they hated communists, not necessarily because they loved national socialism, although some of them did. But at the same time, it doesn't matter because it owes to what I said: European political life orbits around Berlin. It's like, well, we're going to work with the communists. You know, Berlin's going to lead us. And if the axe is at one, it's like, okay, whether people like it or not, basically, the tenor of political life would have originated in Berlin. I mean, where else is it going to come from?

PETE
               Yeah, I mean, I can understand why the Spanish would hate the communists, but if they have, why do you think people were coming from all those other countries? I mean, what was it, because we aren't taught this? You talked about it last time you were on here; Nuremberg just basically put a nail in the coffin for being right-wing. And if you're right-wing nowadays, you have to be middle-of-the-road right-wing and you just have to bow down to whatever the left says. But what was it about certain people in Europe who would be willing to go and fight for a foreign army?

THOMAS

               Well, I mean generally, it's like, um, I mean, back to the point about, um, these German guys, I mean Hitler himself, but also, uh, you know, this idea Germans had that Bolshevism is this homicidal paradigm that is being forced upon us and implemented by radicals and, you know, Jews who want to kill us. I mean, you can say that's crazy or that's a bad way to think about things. That's basically the way people thought about it. Nobody's really neutral on communism. Either you were with the program or you viewed it like I just said.

               In the case of people like Father Tiso or in the case of people like these Slovenian guys who joined the Waffen-SS, they would have done it because they're like, well, you know, this was basically a peasant population of pious Catholics, and they're like, you know, the communists are going to do to us what they did to the kulaks, and they're also going to burn our churches down and kill our priests. You know, fuck that, you know, we're going to burn them to the ground first.

               In the case of a more developed country like France, you know, and I mean, the last defenders of the guys who defended the Reichstag were a French Waffen-SS. Okay; you got a situation like that. It's, you know, you'll have guys who basically would have viewed it the same way that the Germans did, you know? Guys from a developed kind of, you know, cosmopolitan, we can call it that, European state, they viewed communism as, like, you know, so much Jewish radicalism aimed at, you know, kind of annihilating our national existence in favor of this paradigm of enslavement, quite literally.

               But I mean, there's not, you know, it's, I've got an idea. I mean, I don't want to go too far afield and bring it into the, bring it into the polemic, but it's the, you know, it doesn't really, at the end of the day, I mean, I think the point a lot that, I mean, it, you know, anti-fascist people, this idea that, like, I mean, I'm not saying you, but like, people, this idea that, like, people are just, like, revolted by, like, Nazism or something, like, they weren't. You know, I mean, even if you weren't a big National Socialist, even, like, the Hitler was great, even if you didn't, even if you didn't…

PETE

               Didn’t love your local fascist movement?

THOMAS

               It’s not like they looked at it as something revolting or evil. If you were a middle-of-the-road conservative type or a working man who was a believing Catholic You'd probably look at fascists like this; “Well, these guys have some strange ideas and I think their pageantry is a bit silly. But they want to kill the communists and they want to get Jewish finance capital off our backs.  So yeah, I'm with them.”

                I mean that's the way they would have looked at it. That's the way most guys looked at it. That’s why in a state like France the way that people looked at the Germans was this: “We don't like being under occupation by Berlin, but not because they were fascists. They're like they didn't care about that I mean, I'm like no already did of you know, partisans, but I mean, that's  a different thing You know, the average man in the street fighting German occupation. It wasn't a corny He was just what I said. He was a guy who didn't want some German capo telling him his business It's not that he had some kind of Principal objection to the fascism. He probably was a fascist himself

PETE

               It’s funny that some of the people even that I know today talk about how much of our foreign policy is based on Israel. These same people can't even look back to the 30s and see the same arguments. They were just coming from a different direction.

THOMAS

               There's real sectarian enmity between people who identify with Judaism and everybody else.  Now, does that mean that everybody on the planet is a big racist and hates people for no reason or does this mean there's a real problem with the intrinsic politics of Jewish identity? People can't have grown-up conversations about such things. Even otherwise intelligent people can't like to draw these connections between things. It’s extraordinary.