Should We Be Worried?

[klondike]

It was certainly part of the USSR as was all of eastern Europe. If Putin is given a free hand to invade Ukraine I can't see him stopping at that. He thought NATO was weak when they ignored him annexing Crimea. He was convinced it was when Biden walked out of Afghanistan and I suspect that was when he decided to go for all of Ukraine. If he is allowed freedom to do so maybe he'll chance his arm with a NATO country and that really could be WW3.

[Diasi]

well, if that attitude had prevailed in 1940 we would now be citizens of the Third Reich - how's your German?
Mike

September 04, 2022, 05:29:49 PM
An awful lot of people - even some on here who should be old enough to know better, seem to have forgotten just what we faced in WW2

This is the text of a speech given in 1941 by Reichminister R.W. Darre:-

As soon as we beat England we shall make an end of you Englishmen once and for all. Able-bodied men and women will be exported as slaves to the Continent. The old and the weak will be exterminated. All men remaining in Britain as slaves will be sterilised; a million or two of the young women of the Nordic type will be segregated in a number of stud farms where, with the assistance of picked German sires, during a period of 10 or 12 years, they will produce annually a series of Nordic infants to be brought up in every way as Germans. These infants will form the future population of Britain. They will be partially educated in Germany and only those who fully satisfy the Nazis' requirements will be allowed to return to Britain and take up permanent residence. The rest will be sterilised and sent to join slave gangs in Germany. Thus, in a generation or two, the British will disappear.

This wasn't some secret policy; it was a speech given in public and presumably intended to strike terror into British hearts. Fortunately it failed.

Mike

In reality the speech was a complete load of twaddle as Hitler did not have the slightest interest in invading Britain. His ambitions lay in mainland Europe & if Poland hadn't renaged on the Polish Corridor agreement, WW2 would most likely not have happened.

As regards Putin, I would estimate that his ambition is to annexe all the countries that were part of the old USSR, & probably to control those countries which weren't part of the USSR but which have a border with it.

Ukraine is just Putin's 'toe-in-the-water' test.

[Ashy]

The Crimean people voted overwhelmingly to rejoin Russia in a democratic referendum. They had never wanted to be ruled by Ukraine.

[klondike]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Crimean_status_referendum

The referendum was illegal under the Constitution of Ukraine.[11] It is not recognized by most countries,[12] mainly due to the presence of Russian forces.[13] Thirteen members of the United Nations Security Council voted in favor of a resolution declaring the referendum invalid, but Russia vetoed it and China abstained.[14][15] A United Nations General Assembly resolution was later adopted, by a vote of 100 in favor vs. 11 against with 58 abstentions, which declared the referendum invalid and affirmed Ukraine's territorial integrity.[13] As the plebiscite was proclaimed, the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People called for a boycott of the referendum.[16][17]

[Michael Rolls]

In reality the speech was a complete load of twaddle as Hitler did not have the slightest interest in invading Britain. His ambitions lay in mainland Europe & if Poland hadn't renaged on the Polish Corridor agreement, WW2 would most likely not have happened.

As regards Putin, I would estimate that his ambition is to annexe all the countries that were part of the old USSR, & probably to control those countries which weren't part of the USSR but which have a border with it.

Ukraine is just Putin's 'toe-in-the-water' test.

You seem to have forgotten the Battle of the Atlantic - had that gone Hitler's way, he wouldn't need to have invaded (which was never a likely military scenario post October 1940) - we would have been starved out. Just as now, the UK was not self-sufficient in food.
And don't forget - what that speech promised was already being practiced in occupied Europe.
You seem determined to blame Poland for WW2 - sorry, Czechoslovakia and Austria had already gone to the wall - or had you forgotten that as well? Do you really think that if Poland hadn't tried to put aside the corridor agreement Hitler would have simple stayed home - there's naivety and naivety!
Mike