** FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 721 6 April 17 HITLER & BREXIT

AT THE END OF HIS LIFE HITLER CURSED ENGLAND FOR OPPOSING HIM. WOULD HE BE FOR BREXIT? OR AGAINST? AN EXAMINATION.
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‘The future of the British people is to die of hunger and of consumption in their accursed island’, Hitler dictated to Martin Bormann on 4 February 1945. Not quite prophetic, eh, Adolf? Still, the priest wonders: what would Hitler make of Brexit? Would he rejoice or mourn?

But first, another inveterate Anglophobe, Charles De Gaulle. ‘All my life, I had a certain conception of France’, the General wrote in his memoirs. And Britain had no place in that grand conception. Like chalk and cheese, ‘la France eternelle’ and ‘la Perfide Albion’ were incompatible. So in 1967 he vetoed Britain’s application to join Europe. Only after the General’s death, in 1973, did Britain come in. His bones must have turned in his grave. Resting a little quieter now...

Back to AH. From the invective above you’d suppose he had been a lifelong hater of this island race. Wrong. The Fuhrer much admired the British Empire. What smart rulers the Brits were, he felt. A few white troops sufficed in subjugating 400 million Indians. So clever!

Astonishingly, he argued that ‘Britain should encourage and bring about a unification of Europe. Allied to a united continent she would play a bigger part in world affairs.’ An anticipation of the EU? Nope. He meant a Europe dominated by Nazi Germany. (A Germany whose Lebensraum, colonial space, lay in Ukraine.) Oh, Britain’s involvement in Europe was to be subject to the Fuhrer’s control. I can imagine Churchill guffawing heartily at the suggestion.

In 1941, after proving her pluck by winning the Blitz, Britain should have made peace with Germany, Hitler argued. Why didn’t she do it? Surprise, surprise: because of the Jews. Who had Churchill and Roosevelt under their thumb, of course. Indeed, if there is a thread running through this ‘Hitler’s Testament’ is his constant, venomous and obsessive harping on the Jews. They were Adolph’s psychological problem. They were also his undoing – as well as of many anti-Semites in history. It never occurred to him to heed the cynical comment of a slightly mad Latvian Rabbi I knew: ‘If he Hitler really wanted world domination he should have allied himself with us.’

Hitler’s previous sympathy for England was rooted in his racial ideology. The English were a kindred race, ruled by an Anglo-Saxon elite. In 1940, after France’s collapse, the retreating British Force was at Dunkirk. The Germans could have crushed it but Hitler allowed it to escape by sea back home. The ‘arrogant islanders’ were supposed to be thankful and make peace with victorious Germany. Didn’t work. The Fuhrer never got it: for century England fought to prevent any single European power to achieve hegemony in Europe. Hitler’s racial gobbledygook wasn’t going to alter that principle. And it didn’t.

An Austrian, from an almost landlocked country, the Fuhrer never understood Britannia, the Queen of the Seas. Nor did he really comprehend the English character. Further, insofar as he was guided by Von Ribbentrop, his Foreign Minister, he miscalculated. Ribbentrop, a jumped-up upstart and prone to faux-pas, was deeply unpopular with the English when ambassador in London. (Diplomats nicknamed him ‘Von Brickentrop’.) His resentment probably rubbed off on his boss. Von R. did better in Italy but Italian theatricality and bombast beguiled him into believing they were serious allies. Another faux-pas.

Oddly, Hitler disapproved of traditional European colonies. Especially in hot parts of the world. From Africa to South America. He thought the results were miscegenated nations, artificial and soulless. America was an exception. He hoped German immigrants in the US would have come to the rescue of their original motherland. Once again, he was mistaken. Nor did he approve of missionary efforts to convert the natives. Christianity he deeply abominated. Too Jewish, he opined. Groan…

France, the traditional enemy and rival, could never be Germany’s ally in the new Europe. Bolshevik Russia was to be exterminated. The only main European power left was Italy. Hitler cared for Mussolini and fascism but Italy’s disastrous military routs disillusioned him. Italy became a millstone round his neck. As to Spain, Adolf tried to seduce Franco in joining the war against England and attacking Gibraltar but the wily Caudillo outsmarted him. Played for time. ‘I’d rather have a painful session at the dentist’s than meet Franco again’ Hitler said.

So, Brexit: Adolf, are you pro or con? Looks like pro, perhaps. England out of the EU, Germany is bound to be even mightier than it already is. Economically mightier, that is. The economy however was a subject Hitler was supremely uninterested in. And contemporary Germany would disgust him, with her effete and promiscuous PC youth, millions of immigrants, Turks, Arabs, Asians, refugees and so on. Nor would he warm to Angela Merkel. She has no children and ‘women go slightly off their heads when they don’t bear children’, he pontificated. LOL!…why I am thinking of Theresa May?

Britain buried Nazism and its Fuhrer for good in 1945. Maybe, however, Adolf could boast a small, posthumous revenge on a particular Englishman. Eminent historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, author of The Last Days of Hitler and of the Introduction to the fascinating Hitler’s Table Talks. In 1983 the discovery of Hitler Diaries broke out. 60 volumes of journals in the Fuhrer’s own hand. Trevor-Roper was asked to authenticate them and he did. Stern magazine bought them for a large sum, only to find out shortly afterwards it was a hoax. The Englishman never lived it down. Down there, is Adolf relishing that tiny post-mortem revenge?

Revd Frank Julian Gelli

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