Professor harry elmer barnes a tireless exposer of historical myths
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| 1 See comment in J. U. Nef, War and Human Progress, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1950, pp. 139-140. 1 See the Weekend Telegraph of the 2nd July, 1965, in which Major General Jack Churcher tells an anecdote which he evidently regards as amusing concerning the “arrest” of Admiral Dönitz at Flensburg in May 1945. The distinguished prisoner, he tells us, was told “to collect the minimum of luggage to take to his confinement quarters. When Dönitz’s batman appeared with the luggage packed, the arresting officer said, ‘You are not going on holiday but going to prison: you have the choice of one suitcase.’ The Admiral was quite upset but had to choose one. He chose badly: when his luggage was examined at Luxembourg, it contained nothing but pants and vests.” 2 As a result of the introduction of plate armour in the 15th century the combatants suffered little danger in the actual fighting. As King James I once observed with his pawky Scotch humour armour conferred two great benefits on those wearing it—“It preserves one from injury and prevents one from injuring other people.” 1 In a church at Edgware, Middlesex, is a memorial tablet to a lady who died in 1705. Among the many virtues ascribed to her is, “She was religious without Enthusiasm.” 1 Sir Charles Napier was under no illusion as to this war. Previously he had recorded in his diary, “We have no right to seize Scinde, yet we shall do so, and a very advantageous, useful, humane piece of rascality it will be.” See B. Thompson and B. T. Garratt, British Rule in India, London, Macmillan, 1934, p. 356. 2 The Revolution in Warfare, p. 44. 1 New York, Putman, 1940. 2 See Freda Utley, The High Cost of Vengeance, Chicago, Regnery, 1949. 3 In Montgomery Belgion’s Victors’ Justice, Chicago, Regnery, 1949, will be found a collection of the facts relating to this subject disclosed down to the date of its publication. See also, Freda Utley, op. cit. 1 Yet it must be confessed that much more has been said. See for example A. G. Macdonell, Napoleon and His Marshals, London, Macmillan, 1934, pp. 327-330. 2 C. E. Vulliarmy, Crimea, London, Cape, 1939, p. 349. 4 It is, perhaps, noteworthy that in place of paying a tribute to Alexander for proving himself two thousand years in advance of his time, his recent biographer, Arthur Weigall, comments on the trial of Bessos: “The fact that Alexander did not pause to consider what cultured Athens would think of his action is sufficient evidence of his unbalanced state of mind at this time.”—Arthur Weigall, Alexander the Great, London, Butterworth, 1933, p. 262. 1 Hart, The Revolution in Warfare, p. 60. 2 Contemporary public opinion in Britain regarding this exploit was divided. The Annual Register condemned it roundly as “a return to the times of barbarism.” The Times, on the other hand, commented complacently, “That ill-organized association (i.e. the United States) is on the eve of dissolution, and the world is speedily to be delivered of the mischievous example of the existence of a government founded on democratic rebellion.” Few predictions, even of The Times, have remained more signally unfulfilled! 1 On the contrary the Air Marshal informed the German people—“I will speak frankly to you about whether we bomb single military targets or whole cities. Obviously we prefer to hit factories, shipyards and railways. But those people who work these plants live close to them. Therefore we hit your homes and you.” This was certainly frank although as we now know it was untrue. Four months before, in March 1942, the Lindemann Plan had been adopted by the British Government by which working-class houses had been given priority over factories, shipyards and railways as objectives for air attack. 1 The worthy Salingré’s description of this memorable incident deserves record in his own words: “Napoleon III. sah verhältnismässig gut aus, nur die Situation, in der er sich befand, machte einen traurigen, herzbeklemmenden Eindruck, und man mag es mir verzeihen, wenn ich gestehe, dass er mir in diesem Augenblicke leid tat. Ich fühlte in diesem Moment so etwas, als dürfe man diesen unglücklichen Mann nicht noch tiefer in den Kot treten, ich zog respektvoll den Hut, da er gerade auf mich blickte und empfand eine Art Befriedigung, als ich sah, dass er meinen Gruss bemerkt hatte und dankte.” (Im Grossen Hauptquartier, p. 68). 1 Wingfield-Stratford, op. cit., p. 268. On the manner in which the press stimulated diplomatic tension, see O. J. Hale, Publicity and Diplomacy, New York, Appleton-Century, 1940. 2 The Victorian Aftermath, by E. C. Wingfield-Stratford, London, Routledge, 1933, page XIX. Field Marshal Lord Allenby neatly expressed this view of the subject when he declared, “The Great War was a lengthy period of general insanity.” 1 In 1914 British professional historians and gutter journalists combined together in an unholy alliance to represent Kaiser Wilhelm II as a man of unparalleled wickedness, unspeakable cruelty, boundless ambition and conscienceless perfidy who had spent his life plotting the conquest of his peace-loving neighbours. This propaganda fiction won worldwide acceptance. It was not until the centenary of the year of his birth, on the 15th July 1959, that the “Wicked Kaiser Myth” was formally repudiated by a semi-official broadcast by the B.B.C. Many leading men who had known Kaiser Wilhelm took part and paid tributes to his memory. With regard to war-guilt, it was admitted that “Wilhelm’s responsibility was unquestionably small in comparison with that of Isvolski and of Count Berchtold.” Wilhelm was, in fact, “a clever man who thought he understood the vulgar, bustling, aggressive, competitive age in which he lived and who utterly misjudged it.” (See the article by the present author entitled “The Wicked Kaiser Myth” in the American quarterly SOCIAL JUSTICE REVIEW, St. Louis, April 1960.) 2 Lord Kitchener: Portrait of an Imperialist by Sir Charles Magnus, Murray, London, 1958, at page 122. 1 See An Intimate Diary of the Peace Conference and After by Lord Riddell, Gollancz, London, 1933. 1 Both these celebrated legal actions concerned great fortunes which were claimed by impudent impostors. In both the claims were supported by reckless perjury. With enormous expense and trouble both claims were finally conclusively disproved. Nevertheless, in both cases a numerous section of the British public remained unshakably convinced that the impostors had been unjustly treated. 1 General J. F. C. Fuller, Armament and History, London, Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1946, p. 182 2 In the opinion of Mr. James F. Byrnes, “Molotov’s two conferences with Hitler on the 12th and 13th November, 1940, marked the turning point of the war.” As the price of a pledge by the Soviet Union to honour the pledge given the previous year by the Soviet Union not to attack Germany, Molotov demanded a protectorate over the whole of the Balkans, and the right to establish a military, naval and air base on the Dardanelles, which would dominate the Mediterranean and turn the Black Sea into a Russian lake. “Molotov’s demand for a definite and immediate answer on November 13th was his worst blunder,” writes Mr. Byrnes. (See James P. Byrnes, Speaking Frankly, New York, Harper, 1947, p. 288.) Convinced that the pledge which had been obtained from the Soviet Union the previous year was worth nothing, and unwilling to pay such a price for another pledge of equal value, Hitler rejected Molotov’s demand. Thenceforth, he regarded a Soviet attack on Germany as merely a question of time and, nine months later, wisely or unwisely, decided to forestall this attack before the United States was ready to take an active part in the war. 1 J. M. Spaight, Bombing Vindicated, London, Bles, 1944, p. 74. 1 J. M. Spaight, op. cit., p. 43. 2 Hart, The Revolution in Warfare, p.72. 3 Yet this book attracted amazingly little attention. As we have seen, in November, 1945, eighteen months after the truth had been disclosed in this book, the Daily Mail could refer casually to “Goering and Co.” as the parties responsible for the sufferings of British housewives in the Blitz. See page 44. 4 Article in The Star, December 12, 1946, by Air Marshal Harris. 1 Science and Government by Sir Charles Snow, London, Oxford University Press, 1961. 1 Advance to Barbarism by F. J. P. Veale, Appleton, U.S.A., Nelson Publishing Company, 1953. 1 The Times, February 16, 1945. 2 It has now been established beyond question that the British air chiefs knew before the raid that Dresden was full of refugees. As part of the so-called Air Offensive on Germany the R.A.F. dropped not only bombs but propaganda leaflets entitled “Nachrichten für die Truppen”. The issue of February 13th, 1945, the date of the raid, contained an article entitled “Partei flieht aus Dresden” in which it was alleged that all the schools in the city had been closed to provide shelter for “an army of refugees” arriving from the east. David Irving comments, “Having dropped this leaflet on the burning city, it ill becomes the R.A.F. to claim afterwards to have known nothing of the refugees.” 3 Graphic accounts of this great mass air raid are given by survivors in Der Tod von Dresden by Axel Rodenberger, published by instalments in the weekly paper, Das grüne Blatt, beginning February 25, 1951. 1 The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany, 1939–45, by Sir Charles Webster and Dr. Noble Frankland, H.M. Stationery Office, London, 1961, p. 115. 2 See the Introduction of this book, page 20. 3 The Destruction of Dresden by David Irving, London, Kimber, 1963. 1 Sunday Telegraph, October 1st, 1961. See also the quotations from Hansard cited on pages 19–22 of this book. 1 Until the secret correspondence in code between Churchill and Roosevelt, which was revealed by Tyler Kent and which remains a closely guarded state secret, has been published and proved the contrary, it is reasonable to assume that in it Roosevelt pledged himself to involve the United States in the war provided he was given time to do so. See Back Door to War by Dr. C.C. Tansill, Regnery, Chicago, 1952, pages 587 8. 1 See The Battle of France by Colonel A. Goutard (Miller, London, 1948, page 145). 1 For example, The Case of General Yamashita by Frank Reel (University of Chicago Press, 1949) and Manstein by R. T. Paget (Collins, London, 1951). The details of the trial of Field Marshal Kesselring remain, after twenty years, safely buried in an official record. 1 Elliott Roosevelt, As He Saw it, New York, Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1946, pp.188-191, previously published in Look (see issue of October 1, 1946). Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, the widow of the President, supplied the foreword to her son’s book, so that his account of what took place at Teheran must be regarded as the authorised version of the Roosevelt clan, whatever versions others may later see fit to give us. 2 Eden’s unruffled demeanour certainly contrasts strongly with Mr. Churchill’s uncontrollable indignation. Their attitude to terror bombing was similarly different. Churchill never quite overcame his misgivings—see page 194: Eden’s only criticism of the Lindemann Plan was that it excluded from attack working-class houses in cities with less than 50,000 inhabitants—see his letter to Sir Archibald Sinclair quoted on page 195. 1 Not until the Iron Curtain is lifted shall we know how many Germans captured on the field of battle or arrested after the termination of hostilities by the G.P.U. were done to death either summarily or after some form of trial. Including those liquidated in Prague and Warsaw, and those lynched in remote districts, the total probably vastly exceeded Mr. Stalin’s stipulated figure of 50,000. 1 In a nutshell the Morgenthau Plan was designed to bring about, artificially, in Germany the conditions of poverty, distress, and degeneration existing at that time in parts of the American South as a result of natural economic causes, which have been so graphically described by Erskine Caldwell in Tobacco Road. Mr. William Henry Chamberlain, in his book America’s Second Crusade (Chicago, Regnery, 1950, p.306) writes as follows: “It is no exaggeration to say that the Morgenthau Plan, accepted by Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill at the Quebec Conference in September 1944, if applied would have been an indiscriminating sentence of death for millions of Germans. The area in which it was proposed to forbid all heavy industries and mining is one of the most urbanized and thickly populated in Europe.” 1 See Article 19 of the Charter attached to the London Agreement. 1 Mr. Montgomery Belgion points out, in his Victors’ Justice, p. 76, that at Nuremberg “the chief Russian prosecutor was a lieutenant-general but the senior of the two Russian judges was only a major-general.” The former was the spokesman of the Soviet Government; the latter had a no more active role to play than Henry VIII’s judges at Glastonbury. 2 Stalin, by Stephen Graham, Hutchinson, London, 1939, p. 37. 3 Russian Purge, by F. Beck and W. Godin, Hurst and Blackett, London, 1951, p. 87. 1 See the article, The Wrong Road to Peace, in the New Republic, June 28, 1933, pp. 171-174. 1 [Philately is the study of postage stamps.—Ed.] 2 Even the great Lord Mansfield spoke with approval of “the trite maxim of the constitutional law of England that private mischief had better be submitted to than that public detriment should ensue.” 1 See Dr. Taylor’s review of Rudolf Hess: The Uninvited Envoy by James Leasor (Allen and Unwin, London, 1962) in the Observer of May 6th, 1962. 2 Not only beneath the dreaming spires of Oxford but among the untutored savages of Africa the proceedings at Nuremberg have soon become a byword of disrepute. This was shown in 1967 when Moise Tshombe was kidnapped by his enemies when travelling on a British plane and taken a prisoner to Algeria: reports from the Congo, published in the British and American newspapers explained that his political rivals in the Congo intended to demand his extradition from Algeria in order that he might be executed for treason “after a Nuremberg trial.” For example, see the report of the correspondent of the Sunday Express, July 9, 1967. 1 This ruling of the Nuremberg Tribunal was dutifully followed subsequently by lesser war-crimes tribunals. For example in August 1947 at Dachau before an American military tribunal this ruling saved the life of Otto Skorzany, the most famous commando leader of the Second World War, known in the popular press as “the most dangerous man in Europe” on account of his daring rescue of Benito Mussolini and his kidnapping of the Hungarian Regent, Admiral Horthy. For want of any more plausible charge, Skorzany was accused of conducting warfare with troops wearing captured enemy uniforms contrary to the code of civilized warfare. Everyone knew of course that this had long been routine practice of commando leaders on both sides. But Skorzany was being kept in strict confinement and was thus unable to call evidence to establish this fact, well known to the members of the court who exercised their legal right to profess judicial ignorance of what could not be proved by sworn evidence laid before them. Skorzany’s fate appeared sealed. It happened however that the news of this prosecution came to the ears of the most celebrated British leader of the resistance movement in France, Wing Commander Yeo-Thomas, whose nom de guerre was the White Rabbit. To him judicial ignorance in the circumstances seemed blatant hypocrisy, and he volunteered to give evidence for the defence. He told the tribunal that it had been his frequent practice to lead resistance units dressed in captured German uniforms on sabotage raids against the occupying forces. In these raids, he said, enemy uniforms were in the first place obtained by French civilians, secret members of the resistance movement, catching German soldiers off-duty unawares, killing them and appropriating their uniforms and papers. In view of this unwelcome evidence, judicial ignorance became impossible and the court followed the ruling of the Nuremberg Tribunal in the Donitz case and granted the practice of conducting warfare in enemy uniforms a certificate of innocence. Skorzany was acquitted without further argument. See Commando Extraordinary by Charles Foley, London, Longmans, 1954, pages 161-177. 1 Politics: Trials and Errors by Lord Hankey, Pen-in-Hand, Oxford, 1950, page 78. 2 The Campaign in Norway by Dr. T.K. Derry, H.M. Stationary Office, 1952. 1 Political Adventure, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1964. 1 See the articles by the present writer, The Great Krupp Myth in Social Justice, June 1963, and A War Myth on Trial in Social Justice, January 1964. 1 See the article The Tokyo War Crimes Trials by George F. Blewitt in American Perspective, Summer 1950. 2 See Politics: Trials and Errors by Lord Hankey, Pen-in-Hand, Oxford 1950, page 80. 1 [“My object all sublime / I shall achieve in time / To let the punishment fit the crime / And make each prisoner pent / Unwillingly represent / A source of innocent merriment!” —Chorus to the song “A more humane Mikado”–Ed.]. 1 In a photograph described as “the last of the Nuremberg trials” which opened on February 5th 1948, published in the Illustrated London News of March 6th 1948, it was noted with surprise that all the thirteen occupants of the dock, three Field Marshals, nine Generals and one Admiral, were attired in civilian clothes. This was an essential feature of the proceedings in accordance with the theory that a soldier ceases to be a soldier and loses all his rights as a soldier if he be stripped of his uniform. By the same reasoning, of course, a king must be deemed to abdicate every time he retires for the night unless he takes the precaution of wearing his crown in bed as a nightcap. 1 See the interview with General Lesse, reported by Major Redman in the Sunday Pictorial, May 11, 1947. 1 See the speech of Lord Justice Lawrence (then recently created Lord Oaksey) in the House of Lords on the 27th April 1948, in which he said, referring to the Nuremburg Trials, “We have just been joining with other countries in putting to death our enemies in Germany.” 2 See the articles “Nicht Gnade sondern Recht” published by Der Stern. The issue of August 5, 1951 contains a photostatic copy of Viscount Alexander’s letter, dated July 26th, 1951, reproduced in the Daily Express of August 9, 1951. 3 It was no doubt in contemplation of further “tragic mistakes” being perpetrated that the Bishop of Monmouth justified the destruction of the Monte Cassino on the ground that “Jesus Christ came to save souls and not to preserve the Temple of Jerusalem.” This is, perhaps, the most perfect example of a non sequitur in the English language! 2 R. T. Paget, Manstein, London, Collins, 1951. 1 The Peninsular War, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1902-1922, Volume I, p. XI. 2 The soldier, Sir William Napier, refers to Suchet’s methods as “vigorous and prudent measures” while the civilian, Professor Oman, refers to them as “a series of atrocities”. Quat homines, tot senteniae! [“There are as many opinions as there are men.”–Ed.] 1 In Crimes Discreetly Veiled, published by Cooper Book Coy, London, and Devin-Adair, New York, in 1958. A German translation entitled Verschleierte Kriegsverbrechen was published by Priester Verlag, Weisbaden, in 1959 and a Spanish translation entitled Crimenes Discretamente Ocultados by Editorial Nos, Madrid, in 1961. 1 So described in an official reply dated the 26th June, 1953, by Senor Scelba, Italian Minister of the Interior, to an appeal for clemency for Major Reder by the Austrian State Secretary, Graf. 1 The Case of General Yamashita by A. Frank Reel, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1949. 1 The annexation of the Philippines from Spain in 1899 inspired Rudyard Kipling to write his famous poem, “Take up the White Man’s burden” in which is enshrined the very spirit of what is now called “Colonialism”. 1 Article 19 of the Charter (See page 240 of this book) should be compared with Section 16 of MacArthur’s regulations, which reads: “The Commission shall admit such evidence as in its opinion would be of assistance in proving or disproving the charge, or such as in the Commission’s opinion would have probative value in the mind of a reasonable man.” In particular the court was authorised to accept (1) any document which appears to have been issued or signed without proof of the signature or the issuance of the document; (2) all affidavits, depositions or other statements and any diary, letter or other document appearing to the Commission to contain information relating to the charge; (3) a copy of any document or other secondary evidence of its contents, if the Commission believes that the original is not available or cannot be produced without undue delay. 1 Fallschirmjäger by General H. B. Ramcke, Lorch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1951, page 101. 1 Capt. Liddell Hart, The Other Side of the Hill, London, Cassell, 1948, pp. 70-71. 2 The Daily Mail, April 6, 1940. 1 R. T. Paget, Manstein p. 81. 1 R. T. Paget, Manstein p. 72-73. 1 Daily Mail, October 22, 1949. 2 Paget, op. cit., p.192. 1 The Times, January 11, 1950. 2 See William Henry Chamberlin, America’s Second Crusade, Chicago, Regnery, 1950, pp. 210, 307. 3 See Time, July 7, 1952. 1 See Lord Boothby’s letter to the Sunday Express published on the 15th January 1967. 2 At the enquiry before the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in the Spring of 1954 to investigate his alleged communist associations, Dr. Oppenheimer explained, “When you see something which is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it.… We always assumed that if the bombs were needed, they would be used.… We wanted to have it done before the war was over and nothing more could be done.” His colleague Dr. Alvarez testified more tersely. “We wanted some method of testing the effectiveness of the bomb over enemy territory.” See the article The Oracles are Dumb by Isabel Paterson in the National Review of May 23, 1956, page 12.
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