Hitler's peace moves least known

If Adolf Hitler was one sided into destroying every possible formidable foe he encountered, one must not forget the many colourful sides to his character in his quest for world peace.

Killer, dictator, ruthless ruler and what not are the accompanying labels that go into the mere mention of Hitler. But then come to think of it who isn't? What of the thousands slaughtered in Central Europe in the middle ages?

What of the hundreds of thousands killed in the course of conquests and invasions that comprise a blood splattered world history? This then is not to justify whatever was Hitler's inadequacies or to hail him as a paragon of virtue. Yet, let us look at the coin's other side. Very little is known of Hitler as a man who kept his word.

Collective effort

If the collective effort of those times into disarmament - Hitler's prime interest, was taken seriously, the world may have chartered a different course.

Signing the 1919 treaty of Versailles intended as a collective effort to destroy every conceivable weapon of destruction, he suffered a sense of intense 'let down' when other nations secretly resorted to increasing their stockpile, letting him destroy all what was in Germany's defence.

All her heavy artillery and world war tanks Hitler destroyed to comply with the Treaty of Versailles. In realistic terms to fall in line with the treaty's collectiveness, all nations party to this accord should have in the same vain and force of licensing it, implemented it to the very letter which was not to be.

Spiritual property

The US as is always the case, led this insincere collaboration under Woodrow Wilson who pulled the wool over Hitler's eyes with Hitler himself being morally marooned.

Utterly disillusioned, cut up and so very frustrated, he made a very poignant pronouncement applicable even today, "The present day idea of collective co-operation among nations is essentially the spiritual property of Woodrow Wilson".

That was Hitler's intellectual confrontation with a moral shortfall. Hitler surely was, by this utterance, implying the lack of equity in this whole exercise of integrity and wholesomeness which in itself created and fostered international chaos. Had collective effort of the times collaborated with Hitler in his quest for worldwide disarmament, world peace would certainly have been a reality.

Burden of disarmament

On the topics of disarmament and equity, Hitler strikes compatibility with British Prime Minister Clment Attlee. Addressing the 1941 International Labour Organisation Conference, Attlee insisted, "It is certain that until the crushing burden of disarmament throughout the world is lifted from the back of the people, they cannot enjoy the maximum social being.

We cannot build the city of our desire under the constant menace of aggression. Freedom from fear and freedom from want must be sought together."

Citing the Atlantic Charter's equality of access to trade and raw material, labour standards, economic advancement and social security, Attlee reiterated that wars do not enrich but impoverish the world and bold statesmanship will be needed if we were to repair the ravages of war and to ensure to all the highest possible measure of labour standards, economic advancement and social security to which the Atlantic Charter looks forward.

Also President Hoover's 'Hoover Plan in reducing armaments - naval and military, the abolition of lethal weapons and bombing aircraft got the support of Italy, Russia, Germany and the smaller nations - those that held back being Britain and France.

The British public were supportive while the cabinet remained divided. Baldwin was defeated by a narrow margin ending Hoover's grand plans into world peace - the end result being a fragmented league of nations culminating in the outbreak of World War II and Hitler's rise to power.

Accumulation and power

If these were great men's peace initiatives, what made world powers back track the peace agenda? Why then was Hitler to historians a brutal guy? Why not those backtrackers to peace equally or rather more brutal? Why then are those that conquered a quarter of the world and plundered its wealth looked at as virtuous by these historians? If means must justify ends, what were the means that led to 'virtuous ends' of wealth accumulation and power?

Continuing his address Hitler asks, "If the world says today that the nations must be divided into virtuous and non-virtuous nations and that the English and French belong to first class and Germans and Italians belong to the non-virtuous, we can only answer the judgement. Whether a people are virtuous or not can hardly be passed by humans.

That should be left to God. Perhaps the same British statesman would retort, 'God has passed the verdict already because he presented the virtuous nations with one quarter of the world and he took everything away from the non-virtuous.

The question is 'By what means have virtuous nations obtained for themselves all that wealth. And one must answer: "They did not apply virtuous methods. As Hitler himself said, addressing a meeting at Wilhelmshaven in 1939.

"What of the blood splattered history of the European continent for three hundred years. France, Britain, Austria, Poland, Italy and so on with their political passions and wealth aggrandizement was into much blood letting."

Yet, only Adolf Hitler is projected as brutal.

Politicising personalities and events is all part of politicising history - be it at international or national level.

Nothing new anyway in a world where the morally deviant socio/political/economic order is projected as just and fair.

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