What Really Caused
World War 2?
The True Cause of the Second World War
The date of September 1,
1939, when Germany invaded Poland, is remembered as the date
the war started. But little is remembered about the date
Russia also moved into Poland, on September 16,1939. The
nation of Poland was now divided between these two war-time
allies.
It is interesting to
notice what the responses of the major allied nations were to
these two dates. When Germany entered the western portion of
Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany. But when
Russia moved into eastern Poland, there was no war declaration
by either nation.
The Soviets caused one of
the tragic events of history after they occupied their portion
of Poland. They captured approximately 10,000 Polish officers
and brutally murdered them, most of them meeting their death
in Katyn Forest near the Russian town of Smolensk. The
traditional story about their deaths was that the officers had
been killed by the German army, but now the evidence is clear
that the Russians committed this crime. The other victims were
taken aboard a barge which was towed out to sea and then sunk.
Even with all of these
efforts of the American businessman to construct the German
war machine with the full knowledge and approval of President
Roosevelt, he kept repeating that the nation would continue
its "neutral" position: it would remain out of the war. On
September 1, 1939, when the war started, he was asked by a
reporter whether America would stay out of the war and
Roosevelt replied: "... I believe we can, and every effort
will be made by the Administration to do so."
Roosevelt responded by
appointing George Marshall, a CFR member, as Chief of Staff of
the Army over General Douglas MacArthur, not a member of the
CFR, and other senior officers.
Others did not believe
Roosevelt's claim that America would remain neutral. On
September 12, 1939, Hans Thomson, the German charge d'affaires
in Washington, cabled the German government: "... if defeat
should threaten the Allies (Great Britain and France), Roosevelt is
determined to go to war against Germany, even in the face of
the resistance of his own country."
But Germany's war efforts
were still dependent on oil resources, and it came from a
variety of sources, some external to the German border.
Before Rumania was invaded by the Germans, it was selling oil
to Germany. Life magazine of February 19, 1940, has a picture
of Rumanian oil being loaded into oil tank cars. The picture
has a caption under it which reads, in part: "Oil for Germany
moves in these tank cars of American Essolube and British
Shell out of Creditui Minier yards near Ploesti (Rumania.)
Notice that cars are marked for German-American Oil Co. and
German Railways, consigned to Hamburg and Wuppertal in
Germany. They were sent from Germany to speed up Rumanian oil
shipments." This picture was taken after Germany had invaded
Austria and Poland, yet American and British oil companies are
transporting oil for the German government, (the tank cars in
the picture are dearly marked "Essolube," and "Shell").
And other sources
supplied oil as well. When the German air force ran
short of fuel, this was generously supplied from the great
refinery belonging to the Standard Oil Company situated on the
island of Aruba via Spanish tankers. This occurred
during the war itself, yet these tankers were not sunk by
American submarines.
Even with the purchases
of oil from non-German sources, the major supplier of oil was
still the cartel. The I.G. Farben-Standard Oil
cooperation for production of synthetic oil from coal gave the
I.G. Farben cartel a monopoly of German gasoline production
during World War II. Just under one half of German high
octane gasoline in 1945 was produced directly by I.G. Farben,
and most of the balance by its affiliated companies.
But as the war in Europe
continued, America's leaders were attempting to get America
involved, even though the American people didn't want to
become part of it Roosevelt, the presidential candidate, was
promising the American people that the Roosevelt
administration would remain neutral should he be re-elected.
Others knew better. One, for instance, was General Hugh
Johnson, who said: "I know of no well informed Washington
observer who isn't convinced that, if Mr. Roosevelt is elected
(in 1940), he will drag us into war at the first opportunity,
and that, if none presents itself, he will make one."
Roosevelt had two
opportunities to involve America in World War II: Japan
was at war with China, and Germany was at war with Great
Britain,
France and other countries. Both war zones presented plenty of
opportunities to involve the American government in the war,
and Roosevelt was quick to seize upon the opportunities
presented.
His first opportunity
came from the war in the Pacific. It was in August, 1940, that
the United States broke the Japanese "purple" war-time code.
This gave the American government the ability to read and
understand all of their recoverable war-time messages.
Machines were manufactured to de-code Japan's messages, and
they were sent all over the world, but none was sent to Pearl
Harbor.
Roosevelt's public
efforts to involve America, while ostensibly remaining
neutral, started in August, 1940, when the National Guard was
voted into Federal service for one year. This was followed in
September by the Selective Service Act, also for one year's
duration.
But the key to America's
early involvement occurred on September 28, 1940, when Japan,
Germany and Italy signed the Tripartite Treaty. This treaty
required that any of the three nations had to respond by
declaring war should any one of the other three be attacked by
any of the Allied nations. This meant that should Japan attack
the United States, and the United States responded by
declaring war against Japan, it would automatically be at war
with the other two nations, Germany and Italy.
Roosevelt now knew that
war with Japan meant war with Germany. His problem was
solved.
He had made secret
commitments to Winston Churchill and the English government to
become involved in the war against Germany and he knew that
the only way he could fulfill his secret commitments to
Churchill to get us into the war, without openly dishonoring
his pledges to the American people to keep us out, was by
provoking Germany or Japan to attack.
Roosevelt moved towards
the Pacific theater first, knowing that, if he could provoke
Japan to attack America first, America would automatically be
at war with Germany as well. He also knew that, should Germany
attack America, Japan would have to declare war on America. So
Roosevelt attempted to get either nation to attack the United
States first. Japan was to get the first opportunity.
In October, 1940,
Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox sent for Admiral J.O.
Richardson, Commander-in-Chief of the American fleet in the
Pacific. Knox advised him that the President wanted him
to establish a patrol of the Pacific—a wall of American naval
vessels stretched across the western Pacific in such a way as
to make it impossible for Japan to reach any of her sources of
supply; a blockade of Japan to prevent by force her use of any
part of the Pacific Ocean. Richardson protested vigorously. He
said that would be an act of war, and besides, we would lose
our navy. Of course Roosevelt had to abandon it.
This scene in history poses two rather
interesting questions:
-
Why did Roosevelt, the
Commander-in-Chief of all armed forces, including the Navy,
not directly order Admiral Richardson to do as he wished?
Why did he choose to use his Secretary of the Navy to almost
politely ask him to create the naval patrol?
Is it possible that
Roosevelt did not choose to use his supreme power because he
knew that this was indeed an act of war and that he did not
want to be identified as the originator of the plan. If
Richardson had agreed to Knox's proposal, and Japan had
attacked an American naval vessel, Roosevelt could have
directly blamed the admiral for allowing the vessel to get
into the position of being fired upon by the Japanese Navy
in the first place.
Roosevelt wanted a scapegoat and
Richardson refused.
-
Why did Roosevelt not
replace the admiral with someone who would do exactly as he
wished?
It is possible that
Roosevelt realized that Richardson now knew about the plan,
and since he did not approve, he would be in a position to
clearly identify Roosevelt as the source of the idea should
the second admiral agree to it.
Roosevelt did not want
to jeopardize his carefully constructed image as a "dove" in
the question of whether or not America should become
involved in the war.
It is important to
remember that, in November, 1940, just after this incident,
candidate Roosevelt told the American people: "I say to you
fathers and mothers, and I will say it again and again and
again, your boys will not be sent into foreign wars."
Richardson later
appraised his situation at Pearl Harbor and felt that his
position was extremely precarious. He visited Roosevelt twice
during 1940 to recommend that the fleet be withdrawn to the
west coast of America, because:
-
His ships were inadequately manned for
war;
-
The Hawaiian area was too exposed for
Fleet training; and
-
The Fleet defenses against both air and
submarine attacks were far below the required standards of
strength.
That meant that the
American government had done nothing to shore up the defenses
of Pearl Harbor against an offshore attack since the naval
manuevers of 1932 discovered just how vulnerable the island
was.
Richardson's reluctance
to provide Roosevelt's incident for the United States to enter
the war, and his concern about the status of the Fleet, led to
his being unexpectedly relieved of the Fleet command in
January, 1941.
The American Ambassador
to Tokyo, Joseph C. Grew, was one of the first to officially
discover that Pearl Harbor was the intended target of the
Japanese attack, as he corresponded with President Roosevelt's
State Department on January 27, 1941: "The Peruvian minister
has informed a member of my staff that he had heard from many
sources, including a Japanese source, that, in the event of
trouble breaking out between the United States and Japan, the
Japanese intended to make a surprise attack against Pearl
Harbor...."
In March 1941, President
Roosevelt was still hoping for an incident involving the
United States and Germany, according to Harold Ickes,
Roosevelt's Secretary of the Interior. He reported: "At dinner
on March 24, he [Roosevelt] remarked that 'things are coming
to a head; Germany will be making a blunder soon.' There could
be no doubt of the President's scarcely concealed desire that
there might be an incident which would justify our declaring a
state of war against Germany...."
Roosevelt and Churchill had conspired
together to incite an incident to allow America's entry into
the war. According to Churchill:
The President had said
that he would wage war but not declare it, and that he would
become more and more provocative. If the Germans did not
like it, they could attack American forces.
The United States Navy
was taking over the convoy route to Iceland.
The President's orders
to these escorts were to attack any U-boat which showed
itself, even if it were two or three hundred miles away from
the convoy....
Everything was to be
done to force "an incident".
Hitler would be faced
with the dilemma of either attacking the convoys and dashing
with the United States Navy or holding off, thus "giving us
victory in the Battle of the Atlantic. It might suit us in
six or eight weeks to provoke Hider by taunting him with
this difficult choice."
But Hider was attempting
to avoid a confrontation with the United States. He had told
his naval commanders at the end of July [1941] to avoid
incidents with the United States while the Eastern campaign
[the war against Russia] was still in progress .... A month
later these orders were still in force.
Churchill even wrote to
Roosevelt after the German ship the Bismarck sank the
British ship the Hood, recommending in April, 1941:
"... that an American warship should find the Prinz Eugen
(the escort to the Bismarck) then draw her fire, 'thus
providing the incident for which the United States would be so
thankful,' i.e., bring her into the war."
Hitler was not as wise in
other matters. He attacked his "ally" Russia on June 22, 1941,
even though Germany and Russia had signed a treaty not to
declare war on each other.
With this action, the
pressure to get the United States involved in the war really
accelerated. Roosevelt, on June 24, 1941, told the American
people: "Of course we are going to give all the aid that we
possibly can to Russia."
And an American program
of Lend-Lease began, supplying Russia enormous quantities of
war materials, all on credit.
So with Hitler
pre-occupied with the war against Russia and refusing to
involve himself with the Americans on the open sea, Roosevelt
had to turn his attentions back to Japan for the incident he
needed.
The next step was to
assist other countries, the English and the Dutch, to embargo
oil shipments to Japan in an attempt to force them into an
incident that would enable the United States to enter the war.
Japan, as a relatively
small island, and with no oil industry to speak of, had to
look elsewhere for its oil, and this was the reason for the
proposed embargo. It was thought that this action would
provoke Japan into an incident. Ex-President Herbert Hoover
also saw the manipulations leading to war and he warned the
United States in August, 1941: "The American people should
insistently demand that Congress put a stop to step-by-step
projection of the United States into undeclared war... ."
But the Congress wasn't listening.
Continued...
Next: The planned
World War 3
Previous: The true cause of
World War 1
See also: Will the real
Adolf Hitler please stand up.
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