New book challenges World War II myths

Post Reply New Topic

Los Angeles Times Book Review
'Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization ' by Nicholson Baker
An inside look at the inexorable march of Britain and the United States toward World War II.
By Mark Kurlansky
March 9, 2008

<snip>

Nicholson Baker's "Human Smoke" is a meticulously researched and well-constructed book demonstrating that World War II was one of the biggest, most carefully plotted lies in modern history. According to the myth, British and American statesmen naively thought they could reason with such brutal fascists as Germany's Hitler and Japan's Tojo. Faced with this weakness, Hitler and Tojo tried to take over the world, and the United States and Britain were forced to use military might to stop them.

<snip>

"Human Smoke" is a series of well-written, brilliantly ordered snapshots, the length of news dispatches. Baker states that he wanted to raise these questions about World War II: "Was it a 'good war'? Did waging it help anyone who needed help?" His very effective style is to offer the facts and leave readers to draw their own conclusions.

The facts are powerful. Baker shows, step by step, how an alliance dominated by leaders who were bigoted, far more opposed to communism than to fascism, obsessed with arms sales and itching for a fight coerced the world into war.

<snip>

Churchill is a dominant figure in "Human Smoke," depicted as a bloodthirsty warmonger who, in 1922, was still bemoaning the fact that World War I hadn't lasted a little longer so that Britain could have had its air force in place to bomb Berlin and "the heart of Germany." But no, he whined, it had to stop, "owing to our having run short of Germans and enemies."

Churchill was not driven by anti-fascism. In his 1937 book "Great Contemporaries," he described Hitler as "a highly competent, cool, well-informed functionary with an agreeable manner." The same book savagely attacked Leon Trotsky. (What was wrong with Trotsky? "He was still a Jew. Nothing could get over that.") Churchill repeatedly praised Mussolini for his "gentle and simple bearing." In 1927, he told a Roman audience, "If I had been an Italian, I am sure that I should have been entirely with you from the beginning to the end of your victorious struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism." Churchill considered fascism "a necessary antidote to the Russian virus," Baker writes. In 1938, he remarked to the press that if England were ever defeated in war, he hoped "we should find a Hitler to lead us back to our rightful position among nations."

As Baker's book makes clear, between the two World Wars communism, not fascism, was the enemy. David Lloyd George, who had been Britain's prime minister during World War I, cautioned in 1933, the year Hitler came to power, that if the Allies managed to overthrow Nazism, "what would take its place? Extreme communism. Surely that cannot be our objective." But even more than the communists, Churchill's enemy No. 1 in the 1920s and early '30s was Mohandas Gandhi and his doctrine of nonviolence, which Churchill warned "will, sooner or later, have to be grappled with and finally crushed."

<snip>

Baker shows that the Japanese, as early as 1934, were complaining that Roosevelt was deliberately provoking them. In January 1941, Japan protested the U.S. military buildup in Hawaii. Joseph Grew, our ambassador to Japan, reported rumors that the Japanese response would be a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Yet according to World War II mythology, America was blissfully sleeping, unprepared for war, when caught by surprise by the dastardly "sneak attack." (Isn't it curious that Asians carry out "sneak attacks," whereas Westerners launch "preemptive strikes"?) A year earlier, Baker shows, Roosevelt began planning the bombing of Japan -- which had invaded China, but with which we were not at war -- from Chinese air bases with American planes and, when necessary, American pilots. Pearl Harbor was a purely military target, but Roosevelt wanted to bomb Japanese cities with incendiary bombs; he'd been assured that their cities would burn fast, being made largely of wood and paper.

Roosevelt evinced no desire to negotiate. In fact, Baker writes, in October he "began leaking the news of his new war plan," with $100 billion earmarked for airplanes alone. Grew again warned Roosevelt that he was pushing Japan toward armed conflict with the United States, but the president continued his war preparations. Finally, the night before the Japanese attack, Roosevelt sent a message to Emperor Hirohito calling for talks. He read it to the Chinese ambassador, remarking that he thought the message would "be fine for the record."

People are going to get really angry at Baker for criticizing their favorite war. But he hasn't fashioned his tale from gossip. It is documented, with copious notes and attributions. The grace of these well-ordered snapshots is that there is no diatribe; you are left to put things together yourself. Read "Human Smoke." It may be one of the most important books you will ever read. It could help the world to understand that there is no Just War, there is just war -- and that wars are not caused by isolationists and peaceniks but by the promoters of warfare. *

Mark Kurlansky is a journalist and the author, most recently, of "Nonviolence: 25 Lessons From the History of a Dangerous Idea."

Click here for full article

This sounds like an interesting article, but I have skepticism about it. First of all, I think very few people dispute that Germany were the ones that attacked Poland and started World War II, and not that Poland attacked Germany.

Yes, but the USSR attacked Poland on the same day as the Nazis.

So, why didn't the allies also declare war on the USSR?

Stalin was also busy gobbling up countries to add to the USSR--Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia. The Finns put up a good fight and only lost about 20% of their territory to Stalin.

The USSR did not attack Poland the same day as Germany; the Germans invaded September 1, 1939 and the Soviets September 19,1939.

Other than the obvious reason that the "Allies" (which at the time was really just Britain and France) were in no way prepared to fight both Germany and the Soviet Union (France wasn't even ready to fight Germany), the German threat was "closer to home" and could be considered a greater threat than the Soviet Union. At the start of WW2, Stalin wanted to avoid a direct confrontation with the Western Powers, instead hoping to play them off each other (such as having Germany fight France the Britain so when the were weakened, the Red Army could just move in). Also, post WW1, France had a certain fear of Germany (and they did not fear the USSR in the same way at the time), and this is reflected in by projects such as the Maginold Line.

As for the book, it sounds like part of it highlights some of the overlooked aspects leading to the war, but other parts seem somewhat exaggerated/inaccurate (particularly with the descriptions of Churchill; Japan's goal was never to take over the world, and Hitler's main goal was really crush the Soviet Union). As for Roosevelt, he was trying to get the US in the war, but the war with Germany not Japan. He essentially conducted large scale naval battles in the North Atlantic against the German navy without a declaration of war (with American lives lost), made unilateral declarations that he really had no authority to make (the protection zone in the North Atlantic), and authorized pro-British policies (lend-lease act, in which the British essentially got free ships, and the Germany First plan) hoping to either provoke Germany or the United States. Germany was Roosevelt's main interest, not Japan.

Smoke and humans topic

Nicholas Baker lifted many of these myth ideas from historical facts, but he put them together in an in-your-face approach. Had hitler been stopped before the Czech Sudentenland takeover, even before Kristalnacht, millions of Jewish and civilian lives would have been saved. Had people read mein kampf and realized what this vile sieg heil-er was up to... But hindsight is 20/20 vision.

I am going to read this book.