al@ames-lm.UUCP (Al Globus) (01/24/84)
There's been a great deal of discussion on the net about the ends justifying the means, mostly in reference to J. Jackson. Well, there's a lot of agreement about the ends justifying the means, but DO THE MEANS JUSTIFY THE ENDS? If someone is pure of heart, nobly motivated, does only what's right and thereby causes thousands to suffer and die, is the end justified by the noble means? This is not hypothetical. Britain and France did not attack Germany when Hitler invaded the Reinland. If they had, WWII might well have been avoided. They used only 'acceptable' means, i.e., diplomacy, and millions died. Were the peace loving people and leaders of England and France justified? Is the suffering of millions justified by the 'correct' behavior of the West's leaders?
takashi@rlgvax.UUCP (Takashi Iwasawa) (02/02/84)
I hope that this article will lead to discussion of actual cases in
history rather than abstract arguments about "moral" versus "immoral", which
really belong in net.philosophy or net.religion. If people are willing to cite
historical cases to back their positions, this could become quite interesting.
As a start, I would like to comment on the case mentioned in the article to
which this is a follow-up.
Hitler did not "invade" the Rheinland (not Reinland; the area has too
much heavy industry :-)); Rheinland has always been a part of Germany, even
after World War I. What Hitler did was to repudiate the provision of the
Treaty of Versailles that forbade Germany to station troops in Rheinland;
only a couple of battalions (~ 1500 soldiers) took part in this re-militar-
ization, which was therefore more symbolic than actual. The German General
Staff, well aware of the weakness of the Reichswehr, was so worried about
possible French/British reaction that a plan was made to depose Hitler and
negotiate if France or Great Britain took military action. The people of
Rheinland were probably in favor of the re-militarization, having been invaded
and occupied by the French for a couple of years in the immediate past (The
French were trying to pressure the Germans into paying the war reparations
imposed by the Treaty of Versailles).
I agree that if France (or maybe Great Britain) had been willing to use
military force at the time of Rheinland re-militarization, Hitler would have
suffered a serious check. I do not think that the check would have been
permanent; most Germans (not just Nazis) were bitter about the Treaty of
Versailles that had been imposed on Germany after World War I, and especially
about the war reparation issue. Thus, if the German General Staff had deposed
Hitler and negotiated, Hitler would have been seen as the victim of foreign
pressure. He would have gained popularity and probably would have regained
power in a few years.
If military force or threat of force were to be used to stop Hitler, the
best chance would have been during the Munich Crisis, or immediately thereafter
when Hitler swallowed the remaining parts of Czechoslovakia. The moral issue
was much more clear; Czechoslovakia was an independent nation which could trace
its roots back to Bohemia, which had been a kingdom and a power in the Holy
Roman Empire when the German states of Bavaria, Saxony, and Mark Brandenburg
(original home of the Hohenzollerns, later kings of Prussia) were mere princi-
palities and electorates. The German General Staff was still not prepared to
risk war and had prepared plans to depose Hitler in case of French or British
military intervention. Militarily, France and Great Britain should have backed
Czechoslovakia at the beginning of the Munich Crisis, when the Czechoslovakian
army was intact and had the fortified border with Germany behind which it could
defend. Politically, it would have been best to declare war on Germany when
Hitler violated the Munich Agreement and invaded the remaining part of Czecho-
slovakia. There were many Germans who sincerely believed that the ethnic
Germans in Sudetenland had a right to join the German Reich, but even they
would not have supported a war after the Munich Agreement had given them what
they had wanted. If France and/or Great Britain had taken military action to
support the Czechs, Hitler would have been deposed, and the blow to his career
might have been enough to prevent him from coming to power again.
As you can see, I believe that diplomacy (at least the umbrella waving
sort) was the wrong approach to Hitler during the Czechoslovakian crises.
However, consider what might have been done earlier. Stresemann (possibly
the greatest German statesman of the Weimar period) declared before his death
that had France and Great Britain only waived the war reparations imposed on
Germany, he could have persuaded the German people to support his moderate
policy of detente (to use a modern expression) with France and Britain. If
Stresemann had remained in power and implemented his rational foreign policy,
Germany might have been spared the fragmentation and polarization of political
parties which was accelerated by the vacuum left by his fall, which was fed by
the xenophobia that he sought to combat, and which led to the growth of
extremist parties like the NSDAP (commonly known as Nazis).
Takashi Iwasawa
PS. If anyone cares to consider whether the Munich Agreement helped Germany or
the Allies more when World War II started (some people feel that Munich
Agreement saved Britain in World War II by giving RAF time to re-arm), I
would enjoy discussing such a subject. I am at ...seismo!rlgvax (I think;
I'm new to submitting on the net).