Saturday, September 12, 2009

Two Defining Ironies Before the Deluge

You guessed it - another figment of thought concerning the great ironies that emerge from conflict:
Both of these ironies occurred before the Second World War began in 1939.
It is known, of course, that many attempts were made upon the life of Adolf Hitler - the last count, at least to my knowledge, is forty two in number, ending in failure upon the suicide of the tyrant on April 30, 1945.
In 1938, a British attache in Germany contacted the British government stating that it would have been possible to shoot Hitler from his apartment as he paraded past on more than one occasion. At that time, the security forces around Hitler were being enhanced and improved, but not yet completed. Certainly, security in saturation form became an exacting force as the war commenced, and it became veritably impossible after 1938 to approach Hitler, for such a purpose.
And so, Noel Mason-McFarland, the British attache, became aware that he could have shot Hitler with a hand gun from his apartment at a point above a parade event. With saturation security not having been completed in 1938, Mason-McFarland realized that, and so he contacted the authorities in London.
Their reply - it would have been "unsportsmanlike" to do such a thing. (This may sound unbelievable; however, this statement is documented, and can be found if researched).
And so, no further attempt upon Hitler by the British or their allies was made during the prewar period.
The other irony also occurred in 1938. When Hitler made it known to his generals that he intended taking Czechoslovakia, a contingent of these generals began consideration of the assassination of Hitler; for them, annexing Austria to Germany, as Hitler did, was one thing - after all, German was the language of the Austrians. But Czechoslovakia, a country with a different language, was another issue. These generals saw a world war confronting Germany if such an action took place. The result; perhaps the most promising method of assassination, arguably, of eliminating Hitler that ever came to pass was planned by some of these high-ranking officers in the Inner Circle.
That plan was destroyed when Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain flew twice from England to enact the most profound example of appeasement of the 20th century by making it possible, at the Munich Conference, to sell out Czechoslovakia, as the Czech president sat waiting in a hall outside of the conference room.
And so, the Prime Minister of England may have protected Hitler from possible assassination by some members of Hitler's own Inner Sanctum.

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