Debate on World War II Justifications

I've never understood why fight the Second World War in the first place.

Well, that's a very, um, fundamental question.

Well, how about the First World War?

Well, let's stick to the Second World War.

No, let's start with the First, which led to the Second.

Well, we were on the Second. Hitler would've taken as much as he

could've done-

Okay

... as he was showing. And did you really want him to-

Well, Hitler said that 15% of Poland was once

Germany, and it was given to Poland at the Treaty

of Versailles.

That was German territory with German...

So that was his case, and by the way, that was true.

Except the Polish borders had been cut off by-

I, I... Look, I'm not here to-

... Prussia and Russia and Austria

... I'm certainly not defending Hitler.

I'm just saying the idea that Hitler just randomly rolled into

Poland is a lie,

and everyone believes it because they know nothing about the actual facts.

Germany had big pieces of it carved off, including part of Prussia, and it was

given to this other country. It infuriated the Germans.

Maybe it shouldn't have, but it did, and that was the justification for it.

The UK had nothing to do with it at all, and-

Well, we had the Treaty of Versailles

... they destroyed their empire and their country fighting this war

that they still

pretend was a good idea, but it wasn't.

It, it was fundamental. It was the classic good versus evil.

Has the UK benefited from it?

We did the right thing.

Is it a better country than it was?

To have defeated Hitler, yes.

So the UK is a better country now.

Well, otherwise we'd-

It's a healthier country now

... we'd otherwise all be speaking German.

Who cares? But-

I do

... there are a lot of people in Britain who

can't speak English.

Well, yes.

So it would be nice to have, like, at least a European language spoken in

your

country, but-

No

... you don't

... I see no advantage to speaking German over

any other language.

Um, we want to-

But it's-

... speak English. Thank you so much.

But, but the point is-

Uh-

... if a war is fought with the children of

your citizens, which it is, that war

should benefit those citizens.

And it did benefit this country.

In what ways?

Benefited this country...

Can you tell me how?

Uh, but as I said to you, otherwise Germany would eventually have

invaded us.

But we've had 80 years to assess. Tell me the benefits.

Why don't you tell me the ways in which Britain benefited from, I'm gonna

use air quotes here, "winning" the Second World War?

Because from my perspective, it looks like the empire ended, India

was lost two

years later.

Mm.

The United States took over the world and has had troops here ever since.

Yes.

You lost your sovereignty and your self-respect.

The... Well, we cer-

And this beautiful country-

We certainly didn't-

... has been destroyed

... we certainly didn't lose our self-respect

over winning the war.

Our self-respect was hugely maintained by defeating the greatest evil the world has

known.

Then why would you allow foreign troops on your soil ever since?

Because we wanted to stop the Russians.

But, I mean, it's kind of a prerequisite of sovereignty

and self-respect not to

have foreign soldiers on your soil for 80 years.

They're allies. We're in NATO together.

You can call them whatever you want.

Yeah.

But there's still foreigners on your soil.

Yeah, they're very welcome here, defending our shared interest,

which we have,

and our shared interest is the nation state

and maintaining its integrity

and not having people thinking because there was a treaty some hundreds of years

ago, and Poland once had a bit of it that was Germany, we can now say,

"We're gonna

take it."

But I'm merely, I'm merely saying-

We cannot allow-

You used the phrase nation state

... the world not be nice. Yes

... but it has no meaning if the nation state has no sovereignty.

This nation state has sovereignty.

It's how-

How can it have sovereignty-

How-

... when it has foreign troops on its soil?