Was our neutrality during WWII a folly?

fasttalkerchat wrote: »

If there's one thing we're good at its guerrilla warfare. Anyone wanting to invade Ireland could have taken Dublin in a day but it would have taken decades to gain any sort of control over us. And you can only imagine the task being undertaken teaching German to the people of Cork!

wendell borton wrote: »

We received aid as part of the marshall plan from the yanks.
We also got money later on from the germans for the bombs they droped here.

Nolimits wrote: »

To those giving Dev a hard time about signing the book of condolences, though history has judged this to be a bad move, at the time I think it was more about the German Ambassador with whom De Valera had a good relationship with, and even liked. He gave up his radio when asked, and generally caused no bother. He behaved more admirably than the American Ambassador for instance who De Valera didn't like, and kept trying to get replaced.

Seanchai wrote: »

DeValera never, ever, ever gave his condolences upon the death of Hitler to the German ambassador in Ireland. No matter how many times all these rabidly anti-Irish poppy-loving types like Lord Sutch claim it, it is not true for this very, very simple reason: the Germans did not have an ambassador, or an embassy, in Ireland.

Duh. This is how intellectually sloppy the anti-Irish brigade is in these discussions.

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But, it should be noted that the British state did collaborate with Mr Hitler for no fewer than 6 years, 1933-1939, before it finally declared war on Nazi Germany. The courage. The polite name the British use for this (highly popular at the time) collaboration is 'appeasement', but as with all such things it beguiles the truth. In post-WW II revisionism, all these British nationalists are very, very keen to ignore the following facts from the 1930s:

1) In the war between communism/socialism and fascism/capitalism, the British state firmly favoured the latter. This was shown in its support for Franco during the Spanish Civil War 1937-39, most infamously through using the British Navy to prevent arms getting to the (democratically-elected) socialist government of Spain and ensuring they get there from Hitler to Franco and the Fascists. The average British person was made feel, by the British establishment, more terrified of communism than of fascism. And the attitude of Christian churches reinforced this fear.

2) There was widespread sympathy among British nobility and upper classes for both the fascism of the rightwing of the Tory party and of Oswald Mosley, and of the Nazism of their Saxe-Coburg-Gotha cousins over in the royal family in Germany (the British royal family changed their surname from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor in 1917).

3) Even far-right British organisations such as the Royal British Legion, which ironically organises the British poppy commemorations of WWII victims today, organised volunteers to go and fight for Nazism in the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia 1938. The most infamous of these British nationalist organisations that supported the Nazis was the British Legion Volunteer Force. Yes, how on earth the British nationalists can attack Dev with that record is incredible. Brazen. They hate when it's mentioned. DeValera is a nice distraction from Britain's perfidy to its newfound post-WWII self. Here's an acknowledgement of this British treason from, of all organisations, Britain's Daily Mail.

4) The Nazis even had a regiment composed of British people. It was proposed by the British nationalist John Amery and was known as the British Free Corps. It is yet another source of shame for apologists of British imperialism/haters of Irishness like Lord Sutch who rant on this website about how bad all Irish people who have resisted British rule here are.

5) As several other posters have noted WWII was essentially won by the sacrifice of troops and people from the USSR. Some 20 million people from that part of Europe died. Some 40,000-60,000 people died in the Battle of Britain that the British always go on about in their deeply partisan "commemorations". That's perspective. The fact that these British nationalists do not commemorate that incredible non-British sacrifice every year confirms how rabidly xenophobic, politically British and tribal is their poppy celebration.