I recently bumped into a Tucker Carlson interview on Twitter with Darryl Cooper, a man Carlson described as “may be the best and most honest popular historian in the United States.” I had not heard of Cooper before, and being very interested in history thought I would give it a listen. A multitude of subjects were covered but for the purposes of this post I will focus on Cooper’s take on World Wat II and Winston Churchill.
Cooper essentially gives us a word salad when asked why he has started a “project” on World War II. In a seemingly benign way Cooper expresses the thought that there is a mythology to World War II, and a state mindset on that war. Essentially Cooper identifies “groupthink” on World War II, and Carlson joins in with the innocuous thought that “questions” that might produce answers that contravene that group think should be a good thing. Never identified is what the “groupthink” actually is? Is that groupthink the idea that Hitler was the aggressor and that the genocidal gassing of millions of people was evil? Again Cooper treads carefully, claiming that this groupthink prevents historians from “understanding how the Germans saw the war.” The fact that there is a vast historical record, and writing, on exactly that topic appears to have eluded Cooper.
While historian Cooper tries to tread carefully, claiming that his description of Churchill as “the main villain of World War II” does not indicate support for Churchill’s enemies he just cannot hold back his real thoughts. Cooper does not deal with Nazi racial policies but jumps right to the German invasion of the Soviet Union, and the millions who perished as a consequence of that invasion. Cooper deals not so much with combat deaths but with the German “failure to plan” for the millions of POW and “civilians” that were going to “come under their control’ as a consequence of the German invasion. Cooper references letters from German commanders at the front back to the German High Command indicating that these millions could not be fed. These millions, according to Cooper, were POWs and others that had been “rounded up” and placed in “camps.” He fails to address who the non-combatants actually were. Cooper mentions that in one of these letters, from a Camp commandant, the suggestion was made that rather than letting these millions starve to death the more humane method might be to finish them off quickly. So we can surmise that quite possibly “poor German planning” led to the “humane” liquidation of millions of people.
Some rudimentary analysis of the historic record shows how Cooper, according to Tucker the best historian in the United States, seems to have missed or deliberately omitted key, established facts. (Groupthink?) As Adolph Hitler planned the invasion of the U.S.S.R. he addressed the fate of some of the “detainees” that would come under German control through the now infamous “Commissar Order.”
“The war against Russia (Hitler said) will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. All officers will have to rid themselves of obsolete ideologies. I know that the necessity for such means of waging war is beyond the comprehension of you generals but…I insist absolutely that my orders be executed without contradiction. The commissars are the bearers of ideologies directly opposed to National Socialism. Therefore the Commissars will be liquidated. German soldiers guilty of breaking international law…will be excused. Russia has not participated in the Hague Convention and therefore has no rights under it.”
Shirer William The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich pg. 830
Hitler pre-ordained the fate of a group of these Cooper referenced “detainees” through this order to liquidate Soviet officials in advance of the German invasion. Cooper referenced the “poor planning” of the Germans relative to the feeding of all the new detainees. In fact the Germans appear to have planned very well. One of the Nazi “experts” on the East was Alfred Rosenberg, who was one of the group charged by Hitler with drawing up plans for the German occupation and exploitation of the newly conquered areas to the east. Rosenberg, in advance of the invasion, told his collaborators:
“The job of feeding the German people (he said) stands at the top of the list of Germany’s claims on the East. The southern (Russian) territories will have to serve… for the feeding of the German people. We see absolutely no reason for any obligation on our part to feed also the Russian people with the products of that surplus territory. We know that this is a harsh necessity, bare of any feelings… The future will hold very hard years in store for the Russians.”
Shirer William The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich pg. 833
Shirer observed that these would be “very hard years indeed, since the Germans were deliberately planning to starve to death millions of them.”
For those that might discount the importance of Rosenberg Herman Goering committed the policy to writing:
“The German Administration in these territories (the directive declared) may well attempt to mitigate the consequences of the famine which undoubtedly will take place and to accelerate the return to primitive agricultural conditions. However, these measures will not avert famine. Any attempt to save the population there from death by starvation by importing surpluses from the black-soil zone would be at the expense of supplies to Europe. It would reduce Germany’s staying power in the war, and would undermine Germany’s and Europe’s power to resist the blockade. This must be clearly and absolutely understood.”
Shirer William The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich pg. 833
German policy was laid out in advance of the invasion of the U.S.S.R, and that policy included starving millions of Russians to death. The historical record is quite clear on that. (Groupthink?)
Hitler had pre-ordained the fate of Soviet government officials. German occupiers, in all other conquered zones, targeted the Jewish population for detainment, “resettlement’ and ultimately extermination. It was no different in the Soviet invasion. A large group of the “detainees” referenced by Cooper were Jews rounded up by the “special task forces” sent into the occupied Russian territory (Einsatzgruppen) under the control of Heinrich Himmler. These “detainees” did not magically drop into German control, but were rounded up by Himmler and his henchmen. Cooper fails to mention this aspect of the invasion as well. (Mythology?)
It is not surprising to me that Carlson would engage in this type of nonsense. His motivations are not hard to figure out, and he referenced them in the interview. Yes the Ukraine war. What is puzzling to me is that more folks have not stepped up and condemned what is obviously an attempt to whitewash the atrocities committed by Hitler and Nazi Germany. Why is the media not asking major political figures if the massive casualties caused by the Germans on the eastern front were the result of poor planning? Does the GOP leadership and opinion leaders like Elon Musk believe that Darryl Cooper is one of the best historians in the United States?
There is much more to talk about on this subject, and the views expressed on Churchill shall be next.
Bill Manzi.com 