In Defence of World War Two

09 Jul 2008

Speakers: Victor Davis Hanson, Christopher Hitchens 1949-2011

Victor Davis Hanson and Christopher Hitchens take on the World War II revisionists, focusing first on Patrick J Buchanan, the author of Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War (2008). They counter the essential claims in Buchanan’s book that Britain’s guarantee to protect Poland in the event of a German invasion made the war inevitable; that the Holocaust was a consequence of the war and that, without it, the Holocaust may not have occurred; and that Germany invaded Russia only because Britain under Churchill was determined to partner with Russia against Germany.

Finally they address two claims made by author Niall Ferguson that “[the Allies] adopted the most brutal tactics of those they were fighting” and that the principal beneficiary of the Second World War was Stalin’s Soviet Union.