Churchill to Hitler

[Pinkkgaga]

So it’s trending on Twitter that people are comparing Churchill to Hitler and saying he was just as bad.
Absolutely disgusting imo, but I’d like to hear everyone’s thoughts on it.

I'm not sure about setting up a hierarchy of evil. But it's well known that Churchill was responsible for many, unnecessary deaths and had racist views. It's been well publicised in recent years and so seems strange that it should surprise people. I do think that we have had difficulties here in recognising our colonial past and the other atrocities that lead back to Britain and/or England's door. The whole of the history of the 20th century is soaked in blood and there are few countries that have not been implicated in some form of atrocity, although the scale of these varies. But there is a difference between those nations that have recognised/tried to atone for their past offences and publicly acknowledged them and those that have kept them (relatively) buried. We seem to fall into the latter category. One of the reasons why, presumably, the books by right-wing historians who try to justify the imperial past, like Niall Ferguson, are so popular here.

I really think all this has got to stop!! we can’t change the past, but we can change the future.
We have to move forward, yes terrible things have been done to lots of different peoples of the world by the Rich White Europeans over this last four hundred years, terrible things were done to the poor white people at the same time.

To been playing the blame game and saying we were treated worse then you in history is not going to make it disappear.

We need to make sure there is equally opportunity’s to people now and stop going on about what happened in the past.

[quote XDownwiththissortofthingX]@suckingdeiselfella

*Brilliant!

Bomber Harris defeated the Nazis.

Adams tried to defeat innocent British citizens and the army who were brought in to protect them.

Stunning logic there. I can see why you'd think they're the same.*

If you're going to get all foamy about 'logic', then point out the inaccuracy in what I posted. I never said they were 'the same', simply that Harris and RAF killed far more civilians that the IRA ever have. That's a fact, nothing to do with 'logic'.[/quote]
Correct, your points have nothing to do with logic.

At least you got something right.

I've met many German people and not one has ever equated the British army in WW2 with terrorism. I've never met one who has considered the Nazi regime as anything other than shameful. I've never met one who thought it shouldn't have been defeated. The only individuals who think the Dambusters were morally corrupt are woke English without two brain cells between them.

@GirlsBlouse17

Blimey it wasn't that long ago Churchill was voted the greatest Briton of all time. How times change

Quite likely out of sheer ignorance, since about the only thing most people in the UK could tell you about him until recently, was that he was Prime Minister in 1945.

There's no shame in being proud of your nation's past, but you need to be honest about it and accept and acknowledge the truth, warts and all.

See the veneration of 'Bomber' Harris in this thread. By any measure, the carpet and fire-bombing of non-military cities would, in this era, be considered an act of genocide. Hence why nuclear weapons, being indiscriminate, are technically illegal to use. But of course, people are willing to overlook the deliberate targeting of civilians and destruction of non-military targets during WWII because we were on the 'right' side of the war. That doesn't change the nature of what it was.

@XDownwiththissortofthingX

Well Harris killed by far and away more non-combatants than Gerry Adams and the IRA ever did. By some distance as well.

"Non-combatants" is a highly contested term in the context of the Troubles.

@dreamingbohemian

I think XDown's point is perfectly clear.

Plenty of posters here saying that Churchill was responsible for winning the Second World War and so it's okay to ignore anything bad he did.

So why doesn't this apply to Stalin? Whose country probably did the most to defeat the Nazis. We don't give him a free pass (and rightly so).

Thanks.

I was beginning to think I must have been typing in Swahili or something.

I'm Jewish and regardless of whether he was or wasn't a perfect person, my family and I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Churchill. I guess my right to feel safe and the lives of myself and other Jews don't matter though.

Churchill did commit genocide

No he did not. I'm so sick of seeing this nonsense

Why is there so much denial and fear amongst some Brits to confront our past.

He was complicit in the Bengal Famine where 4 million men, women and children starved to death. He diverted food away from India saying it’s all their fault anyway for “breeding like rabbits”.

So much reluctance to confront or even acknowledge our past. Why? Is it because Britain actually doesn’t look as great as some would like to believe?

But of course, people are willing to overlook the deliberate targeting of civilians and destruction of non-military targets during WWII because we were on the 'right' side of the war. That doesn't change the nature of what it was.

Absolutely, as with the US's bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, although evidence suggests that even in wartime these were not necessary to bring the conflict with Japan to an end. And compounded by the deliberate withholding of key information afterwards which might have aided in the treatment of the victims of those bombs.

He called Indians ‘beastly’, supervised the division of India/Pakistan/Bengal and spectacularly mismanaged and/ignored the famine of Bengal.
One man’s hero and all that.

@dreamingbohemian

I think XDown's point is perfectly clear.

Plenty of posters here saying that Churchill was responsible for winning the Second World War and so it's okay to ignore anything bad he did.

So why doesn't this apply to Stalin? Whose country probably did the most to defeat the Nazis. We don't give him a free pass (and rightly so).

Can you please quote the posters who said it's ok to ignore anything bad Churchill did? Nobody has said this. You need to respond to what's been said and not what you think people said.

If you have any knowledge of history you'll be aware that Stalin killed around 14 million of his own people in gulags, who did not support his regime. He starved millions of people to death in famines. His regime was incredibly brutal. I thought everybody knew this but obviously not.

Can you see why we wouldn't ignore 'anything bad' Stalin did?

Do you still think there's a comparison between Stalin and Churchill? If so, can you explain what it is?

@Ylfa

Churchill did commit genocide.

Nope.

Can you please quote the posters who said it's ok to ignore anything bad Churchill did

This...

He, among others, won us the war. Maybe these people who are so intent on picking apart British history and holding us up as a paragon of evil should be thankful to him and the thousands of brave armed forces personnel who made their 'right to protest' and 'free speech' possible!

“Bombs and fire indiscriminately annihilated both guilty and innocent, party members and small children, war criminals and nuns, guards and forced laborers, combat soldiers and refugees who had left their homes to save their lives and believed themselves to be in a safe place."

German President Joachim Gauck on the anniversary of the Dresden fire-bombing

You can read the full speech here:
www.bundespraesident.de/SharedDocs/Reden/EN/JoachimGauck/Reden/2015/150213-Gedenken-Dresden.html

He does not shy away from Germany's responsibility for the war and the atrocities it committed, but he also explains the horrors that German civilians faced.

Yes, the vast majority of Germans are glad the Nazi regime was defeated. That doesn't mean they approve of everything the Allies did, including the massive bombing of civilian targets -- something that Churchill and Harris innovated in 1920s Iraq (then a British mandate territory).

The endless oversimplifications are getting silly now.

@SuckingDieselFella

*Correct, your points have nothing to do with logic.

At least you got something right.

I've met many German people and not one has ever equated the British army in WW2 with terrorism. I've never met one who has considered the Nazi regime as anything other than shameful. I've never met one who thought it shouldn't have been defeated. The only individuals who think the Dambusters were morally corrupt are woke English without two brain cells between them*

What on earth has the Dambusters mission got to do with anything?

The fact that German people don't bear grudges about the actions of their former enemies is totally irrelevant. It's not as if every German in the 30's and 40's was a rabid Nazi desperate to see their own country win the war in any case. That doesn't alter the fact that the destruction of residential areas was a deliberate act on the part of the RAF to kill and demoralise the German workforce, and diminish German war output through shortage of manpower. At the time, expedient and a prudent course of action to bring about the conclusion of the conflict, but it is what it is, i.e. the deliberate killing of civilians.

“breeding like rabbits”
Ah I had forgotten that gem!
One more legacy: the division of India and Pakistan left the Pakistani side with an incredibly unfair feudal system, which led to hide disbalance in the region, millions were displaced and millions died as a direct or indirect result.
It also led to the profileration of fundamentalists in that region which has ravaged that region ever since.
How many people know that Benazir Bhutto was a the daughter of one of the biggest families of feudals in Pakistan, the feudals installed by our people actually. She was killed by a suspected Taliban attack, the people who she called ‘our brothers’.
Live by the gun and die by the gun is not just valid for other, far-away nations. It is equally valid for our country too, especially as we have a huge industry that is based on selling weapons to whoever dictator wishes to buy them at the highest price.
Why are people so afraid of facing the hard truths? Our education system is woefully insufficient and all we can do is to keep an open mind and learn it all ourselves. That is the only way forward.

Why is there so much denial and fear amongst some Brits to confront our past.

I think part of it is that Churchill is very central to the narrative of British exceptionalism and strength that fuelled the brexit debate.

People need to feel good about Churchill to feel good about themselves and be reassured that the path they are on is the correct one.

If you have any knowledge of history

@SuckingDieselFella, I think @dreamingbohemian clearly has a knowledge of history given she understands the importance of the Soviet Union’s part in the Second World War, which is more than can be said for some fools on this thread.

He was complicit in the Bengal Famine where 4 million men, women and children starved to death. He diverted food away from India

He was not complicit. Infact he repeatedly asked for food to be diverted TO India . The most well known of this was when he appealed to Roosevelt

saying it’s all their fault anyway for “breeding like rabbits

Nope he did not say "it's all their fault for breeding like rabbits"

Churchill did not cause the tropical storms that devastated part of India's wheat and rice crops. He did not start WW2. He was not part of the Japanese empire threatening invasion of the Indian subcontinent. Britain was at war with Japan

I guess my right to feel safe and the lives of myself and other Jews don't matter though.

I'm sure it's not what you mean to do but you are essentially deflecting from the discussion. Yes Churchill did champion the Jews, although the championing of Jewish people in general during WW2 was not exemplary, hence Jewish refugees also being turned away. Don't forget we were one of the countries that refused to allow the St Louis to dock, resulting in it returning to Germany along with its Jewish passengers.

www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2018/01/britain-s-treatment-refugees-fleeing-nazis-story-brutality-cloaked-bureaucracy

Could also consider the British's handling of partition in Israel, and the fallout from that. And none of that excuses the deaths of the Bengal famine victims. History is more complicated than that!

@Nihiloxica

""Non-combatants" is a highly contested term in the context of the Troubles."

It's a term used by Irish republicans. The term that was formerly used is 'legitimate targets'. If you were drinking in a pub in Birmingham, or buying presents for Mother's Day in Warrington, you were a legitimate target because you were English. In Northern Ireland, you were a legitimate target if you were shopping in a Protestant area, attending a Protestant church or the owner of a Protestant farm or business.

Can you see now why the previous poster compared Gerry Adams with Bomber Harris? The Dambusters were defeating the Nazis. The IRA were undertaking ethnic cleansing. Simple minded people like and share this rubbish when they see it on social media. You've got to feel sorry for them.

There’s no point ranking historical figures. Churchill did good but also did a lot of terrible things as did a lot of complex historical leaders. Complete unequivocal adoration is not good for discourse. One of the good points of the last few days is that more people have found out more and been educated more on some of our historical figures. I myself definitely have. Good things and bad things.

There's a Netflix comedy special with an Indian comedian Vir Das, who briefly mentions Churchill from his countries point of view. In particular the Bengal Famine.

He isn't complimentary. But then again he isn't consumed with anger.

It's interesting, isn't it? People claim that BLM is a global protest. It is not. It is entirely focused on the West and the UK specifically. Its slogans aren't being sprayed in China or Peshawar. It emerged from a specific US context which is not replicated in the UK. UK and US policing isn't comparable. Yet the narrative asserts there is an umbilical cord connecting George Floyd's death in Minnesota to cops in London. And now, the spotlight has been turned on London's statues. In the face of a global pandemic which is killing people from Ecuador to India, wiping out industries, ruining people's businesses and lives, Churchill, Nelson and the entire cabaret of London's statuary needs to be swiftly consigned to a dumpster. This is guaranteed to cause division, anger, it seems like a calculated attempt to cause serious ructions. Is that the intention? Because to pretend it won't be the outcome is indicative of stupidity. Or mendacity.