Early this century Winston Churchill was voted “the greatest Briton of all time” in a nationwide British poll, which attracted more than a million votes, as he finished ahead of figures like the naturalist Charles Darwin.
It is little known, however, that Churchill had favourably viewed European fascism during the 1920s and 1930s; that is, before the expansionist policies of the fascist dictators began to affect British interests.
In October 1937, almost five years into Adolf Hitler’s dictatorship in Germany, Churchill wrote in the Evening Standard about, “The story of that struggle” regarding Hitler’s rise to power which
“cannot be read without admiration for the courage, the perseverance, and the vital force which enabled him [Hitler] to challenge, defy, conciliate or overcome, all the authority or resistances which barred his path”.
Churchill refused to criticise either Hitler’s brutal suppression of those who opposed him, nor his erecting of concentration camps, which by 1934 were under the direct control of the SS.
Churchill continued that “history is replete with examples of men who have risen to power by employing stern, grim and even frightful methods” but “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”.
Less than four years later, by June of 1941, Churchill was calling Hitler over the radio “a monster of wickedness, insatiable in his lust for blood and plunder”, because as can be safely assumed, Hitler was directly challenging Britain’s diminishing empire and her financial concerns. (more...)
In the 1930s, UK and US Business Ties to Nazi Germany. Churchill’s “Admiration” of Adolph Hitler
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