The Written Word
for March 7, 2001

Ian Kershaw is a history professor at the University of Sheffield and his second volume of Adolf Hitler’s life, called Hitler, is on the bookshelves. Volume I goes from Hitler’s birth in a small Austrian village in 1889 to the end of 1936 by which time he has solidified his hold on the German people and, by taking over the demilitarized Rhineland, cocked a snook at the Allies. The second volume takes him through the run-up to World War II, through the war to his death in April 1945 by his own hand. It is no exaggeration to call these volumes magisterial tomes for that they are.

The writing is superb – perhaps a little long in the sentences from time to time (I hate having to re-read sentences) but mercifully light on footnotes that must be read if the sense is to be maintained.

If Dr Kewrshaw does nothing else – and I assure you he does a great deal more – he lays to rest the notion that Churchill should have made peace with Hitler in July of 1940 after the fall of France. That is the theory first seriously propounded by the neo-nazi, holocaust denier David Irving so battered by the judge in a libel case, and more mainstream historians like John Charmley.

The story of the "moment" of truth facing Britain as France collapsed before the Wermacht in May/June of 1940 is brilliantly told by John Lukacs in his recent best seller Five Days In London. The theory set down by the revisionists is that after Churchill had consolidated his power in June 1940 and after France fell he should have made peace with Hitler which, it’s said, would have accomplished two things. First it would have preserved the British Empire and secondly it would have brought about the defeat of communism as Hitler, free from a war in the west, defeated the Soviet Union. Leaving aside the remarkable moral lapse such a peace would have been, the theory ignores the practical and it is here that Dr Kershaw tells the story so well. Of course Hitler would have made peace with Britain in 1940 if all that meant was stopping the war with her. There was no reason not to stop the war. It would have left the French fleet in tact (Churchill ordered its virtual destruction) and would have left Hitler free to deal with Russia with whom at that time, he had a non-aggression pact.

But here’s what Hitler had in mind. Not only would he destroy the Soviet Union he would take the Persian oil fields upon which Churchill depended for her oil supplies for, amongst other things, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. With a one front war and given what Hitler nearly accomplished with the two front war it is not hard to believe that free from war with Britain he would have accomplished his aims.

It truly boggles the mind to think that history professors like Irving and Charmley could make a case that if Hitler had entered a peace treaty with England in July 1940 that he would have kept it once he had her oil supply in his possession.

It is argued that in the interval Britain could have built up her war machine with great help from an increasingly vigilant United States. This is nonsense. Britain was nearly broke. Without Lend-lease from America she couldn’t have done anything. It’s foolish to think that Roosevelt could have got lend lease through a Congress if Britain was no longer fighting. In fact, Roosevelt would have turned all his considerable energy into fortifying the US ability to protect itself against Japan. Moreover, however much Britain might have increased her might, think of what Hitler would then have possessed.

It may well be that Churchill, in July 1940, had some romantic notions about saving the Empire. No doubt he did. But he knew as no other did that Hitler was a one-off. Where others including members of his cabinet like Halifax and R.A.B. Butler thought Hitler could be reasoned with, Churchill knew from early on that he was something the likes of which the world had ever seen. In fact, this is Churchill’s great legacy – regardless of what might say about his career till then, he was dead right on the main point. And readers of Dr Kershaw’s remarkable biography will come away with the very strong conviction indeed that Churchill, where no other did, assessed Adolf Hitler for precisely what he was and dealt with him as only a sensible and courageous leader could.