May 8, 2015

Finest Hour 111, Summer 2001

Page 47

In an article entitled, “Rethinking Negotiation with Hitler” written in The New York Times of 25 November 2000, Benjamin Schwarz recapped the changing views among historians of Churchill on this subject. (Schwarz lumped Andrew Roberts, Sheila Lawlor and John Charmley into the category of “revisionist historians” with Clive Ponting, a great disservice to Lawlor, Roberts and Charmley.)

The revisionists argue, Schwarz wrote, “…that the idea of an armed truce with Germany didn’t carry the same moral odium it does today. (Even Churchill speculated in 1935 that Hitler ‘will go down in history as the man who restored honor and peace of mind to the great Germanic nation.’).”

As in most attempts to startle, Mr. Schwarz took the quote out of context. It originates with Churchill’s “The Truth About Hitler,” published in The Strand magazine, November 1935 and reprinted as a chapter, “Hitler and His Choice,” in Churchill’s Great Contemporaries (London: Butterworth, New York: Putnams 1937). The full applicable quote (in 1935, remember) reads:

“It is not possible to form a just judgment of a public figure who has attained the enormous dimensions of Adolf Hitler until his life work as a whole is before us. Although no subsequent political action can condone wrong deeds, history is replete with examples of men who have risen to power by employing stern, grim and even frightful methods, but who, nevertheless, when their life is revealed as a whole, have been regarded as great figures whose lives have enriched the story of mankind. So may it be with Hitler.

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“Such final view is not vouchsafed us today. We cannot tell whether Hitler will be the man who will once again let loose upon the world another war in which civilization will irretrievably succumb, or whether he will go down in history as the man who restored honour and peace of mind to the great Germanic nation and brought it back serene, helpful and strong, to the forefront of the European family circle. It is on this mystery of the future that history will pronounce. It is enough to say that both possibilities are open at the present moment.”

Schwarz’s piece reminds us of the unfortunate smear of Churchill’s record in their “Person of the Century” farrago a year ago by Time magazine, in which the editors used selective, truncated quotes to brand Churchill a racist and an enemy of “women’s rights.” (See “Time’s Long March to ‘Person of the Century,'” FH 105.)

Duvall Hecht, President of Bookson-Tape Inc., replied to the Schwarz article as follows: “One of the great and signal acts, one of the watershed decisions, one of the finest examples of moral courage in history is the stand Churchill took against negotiations with Hitler. With unshakable resolve he spoke for freedom from tyranny, no matter the cost, and his call rallied people around the world. On this point, historians who would rewrite the record or cavil at a footnote in the Churchill saga have a firm hold on the wrong end of the stick, and have thrown perspective out the window along with their common sense.”

WOODS CORNER

is a bibliophile’s department named after the late Fred Woods, the first bibliographer of Winston Churchill. Contributions are most welcome.