68 years ago today...

[thejuice]

Just as a footnote, while the fight against fascism left greater physical wreckage, the philosophical battle between communism and capitalism was the story of the age.

Fascism was never going to hold together for long, indeed some reckon Addie was on a suicide mission and had no intention of winning, but more to leave a scar on the earth.

If history repeats itself first as tragedy, then as farce. We had the Napoleonic Wars, then WWII and then the EU.

[AZOffaly]

Actually, a lot of the conditions for Hitler and Mussolini's rise are around today. We need to be careful it doesn't happen again. Right wing parties tend to profit when there are tough economic times, a perceived injustice being visited on the people, and a convenient group to blame for the woes (immigrants, muslims, jews, communists etc etc). I'd be worried about the likes of Italy and Greece.

[muppet]

Paisley? I'd see some similarities in their style of delivery. Focus on what people are scared of, angry at, or mistrust. Wind them up with outrageous scenarios that play to those fears, bring them to a crescendo and have a constant mantra that drums into their Consciousness.

"Ulster Says No"
"Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer"

Paisley is just the last in a long line of Protestant rabble rousers in Ireland. Many of these people, before WW2, were openly anti-semitic. So was the Catholic Church. I have read about the Protestant proselytiser Edward Nangle in Achill Island, and he frequently aggressively preached against what he called 'The Jew' throughout the 1800s.  Indeed at the start of the war Britain rounded up many Jews who had escaped persecution on the continent, along with Germans & Italians and held them under arrest. They released most within 6 months.

See this article by Tom Conti on his Italian father:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22278664


Here is an article on Nangle, incidentally the Archbishop McHale mentioned is the man who McHale Park, Castelbar is named after.
http://www.mayonews.ie/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=17344:who-was-reverend-edward-nangle&catid=28&Itemid=100004

[Rossfan]

Lest ye forget......
68 years ago today who were the reigning ...............................................................
ALL IRELAND CHAMPIONS ( Senior Football).

[BennyCake]

Wasn't Hitler's death announced on May Day, just like Bin Laden? And of course, no body was produced in either case.

[dillinger]

See this article by Tom Conti on his Italian father:


Angelo Morelli of the famous ice cream makers was also interned on the I.O.M.

[thejuice]

Actually, a lot of the conditions for Hitler and Mussolini's rise are around today. We need to be careful it doesn't happen again. Right wing parties tend to profit when there are tough economic times, a perceived injustice being visited on the people, and a convenient group to blame for the woes (immigrants, muslims, jews, communists etc etc). I'd be worried about the likes of Italy and Greece.

While the conditions are there I think it is a little simplistic to suggest it will happen like that again.

Just my hunch but I think what may happen is splits within countries as people get fed up with "the other side" similar to the secession movement in the USA.

I think if the EU needs to become more democratic than bureaucratic in order to avoid this. At the minute it really feels like the people have little or no say in how the EU is run. Otherwise they may feel they need to opt out as a country or split the country and then opt out.

[AZOffaly]

Not suggesting a Hitler will rise again, but I think there are certainly the conditions for localised Facist and Nazi-lite aggression and unrest. If a Facist party gets power, it may make diplomatic life uncomfortable. So while I'm not suggesting WWIII will start on the basis of what's going on now, I think it would be daft to be blasé about the potential unrest in those areas.

[thejuice]

Yes I agree about potential localised unrest, I get the feeling there will be a big rift emerging over immigration and identity politics if it's not there already. If it doesn't emerge politically it may happen on the ground. And it might be closer to home than we think, possibly Britain or France.

But that's just my reading of the situation. I could be completely wrong.

[rossie mad]

Actually, a lot of the conditions for Hitler and Mussolini's rise are around today. We need to be careful it doesn't happen again. Right wing parties tend to profit when there are tough economic times, a perceived injustice being visited on the people, and a convenient group to blame for the woes (immigrants, muslims, jews, communists etc etc). I'd be worried about the likes of Italy and Greece.

Very good point.
A lot of policies been taken by the current western democracies are causing alot of hardship in the less well off section of societes which the likes of extreme right and left wing political wings tend to thrive on and grow.
Greece is a country which always had extreme left wing elements as well as italy and over time as the current economic policies in these countries become more severe which they will something will have to give and i believe it will.
In what form i dont know?
Maybe a popular peoples rebellion or a military junta or even a rebellion led by a figure like castro or chavez or like the other extreme mussolini or franco.
Greece is a time bomb waiting to go off.
It all depends how much more the Greek people are prepared to accept.

[rosnarun]

Mad to think what would have happened had the Brits not put up such a good fight.

Or got bailed out by the Yankees.

I presume both of you got you education from the HRH's propaganda department of 'How we won the war'
the western front was a mere irriation to the german while the real fighting was happenning on the east .
For decades it was unnacceptale to Admit that it was The USSR and it communist government Won the war . Just look athe numbers involved count the dead

western front
english  allies military deaths 1.5 mil
axis deaths 0.5 mill

eastern front
russian allies deaths 10.5 million
Axis death 5 miilion

not really comparable are they?

[NAG1]

Mad to think what would have happened had the Brits not put up such a good fight.

Or got bailed out by the Yankees.

I presume both of you got you education from the HRH's propaganda department of 'How we won the war'
the western front was a mere irriation to the german while the real fighting was happenning on the east .
For decades it was unnacceptale to Admit that it was The USSR and it communist government Won the war . Just look athe numbers involved count the dead

western front
english  allies military deaths 1.5 mil
axis deaths 0.5 mill

eastern front
russian allies deaths 10.5 million
Axis death 5 miilion

not really comparable are they?

It was a numbers game and the Russians simply had more numbers, it is widely accepted that had Hitler not got involved on the Russian front that they would have steam rollered the Western Front. The Yanks provided the fire power for the liberation of France with the British because the Germans were suitably weakened fighting on two fronts.

[mouview]

Agree with the Russian viewpoint. Oliver Stone claims as much on his currently-airing WWII TV series. Stalin's Red Army through superior manpower (they just threw soldiers into battle as cannon-fodder) and eventually superior equipment were what really derailed Hitler's expansion plans and forced the conflict into a turning point. The Eastern front and the whole of eastern Europe during WWII was surely the greatest charnel house into history of mankind, veritably a hell-on-earth.

You must remember that the war was ultimately about racism; the Nazis aim was to eradicate all untermensch - Poles, Slavs, Jews, gypsies, homosexuals etc. and impose a new world order based on supposed Aryan superiority - hence their push eastwards. As such, western European peoples weren't really seen as their natural foes, indeed it's perhaps thought that the regime admired the British somewhat, (don't know what their plans were for Ireland).

I've just finished Alan Levy's book, Nazi Hunter, based on Simon Wiesenthal's life's work*. Wiesenthal spent some time researching a purported fact that Hitler contracted syphilis from a Jewish prostitute early in life, which could account for some of his anti-Semitic hatred.

* Book is long but worth a look. However, some of the concentration camp passages are beyond horrific and almost unreadable. Some of the Ukrainian protagonists in particular, well-experienced in pogroms and proxies for the SS commanders, emerge as barbaric. A lot of Austrians are deeply immersed in guilt also. The Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg is portrayed as one of the great heroes of WWII, a Schindler x 100.

[seafoid]

Or if Hitler had decided he could let the Soviets alone for 10 years.

There was no oil in the Reich. They didn't have the resources for global control.

[Billys Boots]

Or if Hitler had decided he could let the Soviets alone for 10 years.

There was no oil in the Reich. They didn't have the resources for global control.

And they needed the Ukraine to feed their growing empire.