17 SEPTEMBER
LLOYD GEORGE PRAISES HITLER
Lloyd George and Hitler meet at Bertchesgaden in 1936 (public domain).
[ 17 September 1936 ]
Today in 1936, David Lloyd George, a giant in British politics and a former Liberal prime minister who had just returned from Germany where he enjoyed tea with Hitler at the Berghoff, wrote an astonishingly adulatory account of his impressions of the Nazi dictator in the Daily Express. It was splashed across two pages of the newspaper under the headline ‘I talked to Hitler.’ According to Lloyd George, the Fuhrer’s ‘resolute will’ and ‘dauntless heart’ had ‘rescued his country’ from the ‘despair, penury and humiliation’ of the preceding Weimar Republic. His virtues were virtually beyond reproach. ‘Not a word of criticism or of disapproval have I heard of Hitler. He is as immune from criticism as a king in a monarchical country. He is something more. He is the George Washington of Germany – the man who won for his country independence from all her oppressors.’1
CHURCHILL – NAZI PERSECUTION OF GERMANY’S JEWS ‘NOT OUR BUSINESS’
[ 17 September 1937 ]
On 17 September 1937, Winston Churchill published an article in multiple newspapers, including the London Evening Standard, the Belfast Telegraph and the Yorkshire Post, under the headline ‘Making Friends with Germany.’ Churchill made it clear that he believed Britain had no right to take a stand on the persecution of Jews and critics of Nazi Germany, whether dissident priests or communists. ‘We cannot say,’ he confessed, ‘that we admire your treatment of the Jews or of the Protestants and the Catholics of Germany. We even think our methods of dealing with communism are better than yours. But, after all, these matters, as long as they are confined inside Germany, are not our business.’2 It seems that Churchill’s real concern was restricted to threats which might effect Britain or complicate British strategic interests, especially as it was difficult to forget that it had been an assassination which had led to the First World War. However, there is absolutely no evidence of any dedication to fighting fascism. Just the opposite. Churchill appeared indifferent to the fate of all Hitler’s victims, so long as such murders posed no threat to the delicate balance of power in Europe.
TONY BLAIR CAUTIONS BERLUSCONI NOT TO BE OVERLY CONCERNED ABOUT WAR CASUALTIES
[ 17 September 2001 ]
In 2001, Alastair Campbell, as Tony Blair’s director of communications, was one of the few officials in almost daily contact with the prime minister. On 17 September, six days after the attack on the World Trade Centre, he noted in his diary that the PM had lunch with Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi.
FOOTNOTES
- “I Talked To Hitler,” the Daily Express, 17 September 1936 p. 12
- Winston Churchill, “Friendship with Germany”, the Yorkshire Post, 17 September 1937, p. 10 and Winston Churchill, ‘Friendship with Germany,’ The Belfast Telegraph, 17 September 1937, p. 10.
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