There is something very wrong in the methods of historical research as they never seem to get results that all agree with. What is that as a scientific method? There was only one past, so it should be possible to find it, or if it isn’t, there is no science of history.
The beginning of the Second World War is no exception. There is the old accepted explanation that Hitler attacked the world, there is the revisionist explanation that Stalin wanted to conquer Europe and Hitler had to attack for self-defense, and I am sure there are many other explanations and historical methods cannot solve which explanation is correct.
It just came to my mind that the problem is that they argue based on documents, rather than based on logic. There are all kinds of documents and some of them are for sure seemingly in contradiction. Thus, there are documents showing that the Soviet Union had troops in attack positions and they had plans of invasion far to the West, which apparently supports the explanation that Stalin was going to attack very soon and Hitler was forced to make a preventive attack. But then there are many statements by Hitler and passages from Mein Kampf which show that Hitler clearly had the intention of attacking the Soviet Union. Thus, nothing can be decided based on such contradictory documents.
Finding new documents does not solve anything, it just adds to the chaos. I think historians pay so much attention to documents and to finding new documents because it is an easy way so claim originality to you research. Find some new document and draw some conclusions from what it seems to say, best if they are in contradiction with what has been earlier thought. So you have material for a doctorate in history or a publication, and all you have done is adding more confusion to the historical explanation.
It could be the same as in medicine. First doctors tell that butter is harmful, then they reverse. You can guess that somebody had to find a revolutionary new study to get a degree or a professor chair, and the easiest was to reverse some earlier truth.
Obviously, arguing from documents is not the best way to study history. It is much better to argue from the lack of documents. I will explain with a case study how to do such argumentation.
Let us take the beginning of the Second World War. Long before that war, long before Hitler and Nazis and even before Wagner formed his Bayreuth circle of friends to spread anti-Semitism, the pre-Zionists started their effort to establish a home country for Jews to Palestine. Mordecai Manuel Noah created Ararat in 1825 and by 1840 pre-Zionists included Freemasons, some Jewish bankers, some kabbalists, and even some communists. One of the kabbalists was Zvi Hirsch Kalischer and he made a “prophecy” that the time of the redemption (that is, the time when the Jews will return to the homeland) started 1840, it will last 100 years, and if by 1939 Jews still have not returned to Palestine, they will have to do so but with much suffering.
So, this is a conditional promise that there will be the great persecution of the Jews and the Jews will return to Palestine if they will not voluntarily return before 1939. They did not and there was the persecution and founding of Israel. This “prophesy” looks like an early warning of something that was decided around 1840 by pre-Zionists. The Jews caused problems in the new world of Freemasons, they had to go. The bankers, though Jewish, shared the same opinions, but they also wanted to play the role of the messiah. Kabbalists naturally wanted the time of redemption to come. Communists hoped that they could build a communistic Israel. Much later Theodore Herzl founded the Zionist Congress and about the same time anti-Semites of the Wagner circle started an anti-Semitic campaign. I have no doubt that both activities: Zionism and anti-Semitism, were created by pre-Zionists in order to push the Jews to Palestine. And then Rothschild got the British to make the Balfour declaration of the Jewish homeland, after the Jews had got the USA to join the world war on the British side. How did they do that? It seems that largely by media and also by capital. It was not Herzl’s Zionists, but the pre-Zionists who made this deal.
Some time before this deadline year 1939 Hitler starts preaching that the Jews must be pushed out of Europe. Could it have any connection to the Palestine plan of the pre-Zionists? Here we use the lack of documents: there is a complete lack of documents that the Great Britain, France, Italy, the Soviet Union, the USA, or any other country with the exception of Germany, were planning or realizing persecution of Jews and wanted to push them out of Europe. In comparison, there is clear evidence that Nazis had such a program. Thus, Nazis realized the program of the pre-Zionists. It must mean that some high Nazis, like Hitler and Rudolf Hess, knowingly worked for pre-Zionists. This is clear because the pre-Zionists were strong and committed enough to take the USA to the war against the wish of its citizens in order to get the Balfour Declaration, they were certainly going to get the Jews to move to Palestine and to create Israel. Whoever realized this plan at that time must have done it in understanding with and for the pre-Zionists.
That’s it. The lack of documents showed clearly and undeniably what was Hitler’s plan. He wanted to transfer European Jews to Palestine, and also to persecute them and cause much suffering. From this we can deduce that Hitler had to take to concentration camps the Jews of Poland, the Baltic states and the Soviet Union. He had two choices with Poland: either Poland would bend and give areas with German population. Had Poland done so, it would have become a vassal state and either joined into the attack to the Soviet Union or be occupied by Germany, or Poland would resist and be occupied by Germany. The latter happened, but to make occupation of Poland easier Hitler made a pact with Stalin of division of Poland.
Other German goals must have included changing the regime in the Soviet Union, as a Communistic regime was an existential threat to Germany and the rest of Europe. Pre-Zionists had supported Communism, but Stalin threw out Trotsky, and that was not kindly seen by the bankers that supported Trotsky with money. The new regime need not have been Communistic, yet it would have been as dangerous to Europe as the goal of the pre-Zionists was always the world rule. The primary goal of Hitler and Hess was forcing the Jews to Palestine, the secondary was stopping the Communistic agitation, and the third goal was establishment of Ukraine and the Baltic countries as German colonies or vassals. Poland might have been reduced to a small vassal state, or divided. But this third goal was mainly a strategic move to make Germany into one of the world powers and motivation of the war to Germans by a romantic view of a warrior-farmer guarding colonies with a rifle in the hand. This third goal was never fully worked out in concrete plans.
Additionally there was the West, where there also were Jews. The plan included a war between France and Germany. France would not much resist and Germany would not be a too hard occupation force. A sizable part of the Jews would be transferred and after the war Germany would withdraw. The Great Britain was expected to stay out of the war, or if it was necessary for it to join the war, it would make a peace with Germany at some point. The USA would not fight Germany.
This is the only logical plan from the German side, but what was the plan of the Great Britain? It naturally never intended to stay out of the war, nor was it going to make a peace with Germany. The British plan was to bring the USA to the war, but only after Germany had made its share: attacked the East and collected the Jews. A war in the East would have exhausted Germany. Then the Western powers would have destroyed it. The Great Britain and France tried to avoid a war in the Western Europe. They preferred to move the fighting to Scandinavia, mainly Denmark. For this purpose they planned occupation of Northern Sweden and Norway. The pretext would have been Finland asking for help against the Soviet Union. As the Great Britain and France did not declare war to the Soviet Union after it attacked Poland, we can be sure that they had no intention of helping Finland in the Winter War. They would have occupied the iron mines in Sweden and waited there for the time of the attack to Germany. This attack was to be after the German attack to the Soviet Union, thus it was not important that France and the Great Britain were not ready for a war in 1939. Naturally the Soviet Union would have occupied whole Finland in 1940. This was necessary because the Western powers were going to occupy Sweden and Norway and Russians could not let them take Finland with a long eastern border.
It is true that in the very beginning the Soviet Union only asked Finns rent an island. The secret appendix of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (August 23. 1939) allowed the Soviet Union to ask for military bases, but had Finland agreed to the first demands, the result would have been a Soviet occupation in 1940, as happened in the Baltic states. This is so already because of the plans for Scandinavia by the Great Britain and France.
Finns did not agree and the Soviet Union attacked in the end of 1939. Stalin agreed to make a peace even though Finnish defense was very close to collapse. The reason for this cannot be Stalin’s fear of Finland asking help from France and the Great Britain. That is exactly what the Allied hoped for: it would have lead to the Western powers occupying Scandinavia and the Soviet Union occupying Finland. The reason for Staling to agree to a peace treaty can only be that Hitler demanded it and made a threat of joining the war on the Finnish side. There is no document proving such a threat, but as it is the only conceivable reason, we must assume there was such a document. It is fully possible: Hitler did not always use official channels.
Here we have another method of historical research that seems to me sounder that proving by documents that something happened. It is the opposite of it: what happened proves that there had to be a document. A classical case of this method is to argue that if we prove beyond any doubt that Jews were exterminated (it happened), then there must be a document where Hitler orders extermination (there must have been a document, but we may not find it). In this classical example the burden of the proof is to show it happened, as demographic calculations give a bit problematic results.
But in many other situations the method should work. There had to be a document proving that Hitler’s demanded Stalin to stop the attack in the Winter War, because what happened demands such a document. There had to be a document signed by the Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union before 17. September 1939 that France and England will not declare a war to the Soviet Union when it attacked Poland. This document must have accepted an attack of the Soviet Union to Poland and if means that England and France gave on purpose empty guarantees to Poland with the explicit intention that these guarantees will cause Poland to oppose German demands and Germany and the Soviet Union will divide Poland. Poland did not initially resist the Soviet attack. This can only mean that the Great Britain and France told it to do so. Later Soviets killed Polish officers in Katyn.
So, this document must have existed. The goal of the Great Britain and France was to get Germany to attack, and to occupy France, as it was necessary for collecting the Jews. The betrayal of Poland had a clear goal: Poland could not stay out of the war as it had a large Jewish population and it was on the straight way to the Soviet Union from Germany. The only alternatives for Poland were either to join Germany in the attack to the Soviet Union, or to resist. The Allied could not allow Poland to join Germany in the attack. Killing Polish officers in Katyn fits to this explanation well: the Soviets did not want any danger from Poles, at that time or later. There certainly was a possibility that Poland might have been forced to join Germany in the attack. They did join Napoleon in his attack to Russia.
There is still one document that must have existed: an agreement that France will not do much resistance to Germans. This agreement may have included an agreement from the Great Britain that it will make a peace with Germany. We can guess that this kind of an agreement must have existed since collecting Jews from the Western Europe had to be arranged in some way.
It is possible to connect this missing document to the flight Rudolf Hess made to Scotland. Hess was kept isolated in the prison to the end of his life, thus he had something to tell. What could it have been? There are only very few topics where there is a total silence and cover-up. Certainly, if Nazis actually were executing a plan by pre-Zionists for creating great suffering to Jews and for establishing Israel, it would not be something to tell publicly, at least if Hess could have shown documents. There must have been documents, but after Hess died they are lost.
The plan Hitler and Hess knew must have included the Great Britain making a peace with Germany and the USA being kept out of the war in Europe. As England violated this agreement, Hess saw it necessary to fly himself and to discuss a new agreement. I think he made an agreement: Germany could attack the Soviet Union, and if it would have won, things might have been different. But I do not think the Great Britain was going to respect the agreement any way. They would have taken the USA to the war.
So, I do not think one should try to prove historical facts by documents. One should prove by what happened and deduce the documents. Then documents can confirm it.
You of course as me to prove it, acclaiming: show the documents.
It is the historical events that should prove regardless of if we find the documents or not, but there may be some documents of interest.
In 1971 Vilho Tahvanainen published a book Erikoistehtävä where he told having been a special courier of Mannerheim, the head of the Finnish armed forces in the Second World War. He told of Mannerheim’s secret file, called s-32 (from Suvilahti 1932), which contained this courier correspondence. He wrote that the original file was destroyed in Kekkonen’s time, but he had access to copies when writing the book. There were secret documents of Mannerheim’s communication with heads of the Soviet military, including Stalin.
The book was claimed to be a fable. There is an episode when in 1933 Tahvanainen travels to the eastern border with Mannerheim and President Svinhuvud. These two gentlemen wait in the bushes when Tahvanainen went to meet a Soviet general, who has a message from Stalin. It does not sound very believable. Historians have questioned the existence of the file s-32. Mannerheim did have a secret archive, but presumably there never was any file s-32.
Based on these quite negative opinions, I originally thought that maybe Tahvanainen invented a cover story. Maybe he got a real secret file from somebody who actually was close to Mannerheim, like for instance from Aladar Paasonen, the head of the Finnish intelligence. If so, one could forget what Tahvanainen tells of how he got the file and one should just look at the document copies in the file. The file, consisting of copies, exists. It has been used by Erkki Hautamäki in the book Suomi myrskyn silmässä parts 1, 2 and the documents are said to be reprinted in the second part of his book. It seemed to me that the documents may be real and judging documents based on their provenance is wrong.
But then I looked more closely to Vilho Tahvanainen and started to wonder if his story is not actually quite true. When Tahvanainen was 17, he was thrown to a river by Communist agitators, a dangerous thing as the river was full of floating wood, but he survived. Then he spied these Communist agitators, they were preparing sabotage actions. Tahvaninen managed to capture their plans and took them to the headquarters of the White Guard. He did a similar thing another time: pretending to be a Communist he infiltrated to one group, again stole the plans and took them to the White Guard. The head of the White Guard was Mannerheim. It is known that Tahvanainen worked as Mannerheim’s radio man and had taught himself Morse code. Maybe he indeed was chosen by Mannerheim to special assignments.
Tahvanainen was not in the Finnish intelligence, but I find it quite possible that he was a courier to Mannerheim. Mannerheim had been an officer in Tsar’s army and he still had old officer friends, who had stayed in the Soviet army. According to Tahvanainen, Mannerheim communicated with “Irina”, “Luci”, “Grigori” and “S” and “S” was Stalin. Hautamäki claims that “Irina” was General Boris Sjaposjnikov, the head of the general staff of the Soviet armed forces. Why not, Mannerheim would communicate with high level people. They were not spies for Finland.
I also find it possible that Mannerheim and President Svinhuvud may have stayed in some bushes assuming that Mannerheim were expecting some demands from Stalin and the dictator demanded an immediate answer. It seems to be that Mannerheim did make a private agreement with Stalin: Finland could remain independent after the war provided that 1) Finland does not attack Leningrad, 2) will not disturb the railroad to Murmansk, and 3) does not continue past the Syväri river. Mannerheim had the possibility to do all these but refused.
The story of Vilho Tahvanainen is not so impossible at all. I have read neither Tahvanainen’s nor Hautamäki’s books but the latter tells of several documents.
Hautamäki’s book tells of an agreement between Stalin and Churchill, which is very similar to the one proposed I proposed had to exist because of what happened: Churchill and Stalin discussed co-operation in the war against Germany in Crimea in April 1939. In July they agreed that when Germany and the Soviet Union attack to Poland, Western powers declare war only to Germany.
The book also confirms that Hitler sent two notes to Stalin that the Soviets must stop the attack to Finland in the end of the Winter War. Mannerheim was sent copies of the notes.
Hautamäki states that in October 15. 1939 Stalin and Churchill signed an agreement with the goal of destroying Germany in the military and economic domains. Churchill’s plan of conquering Scandinavia if Finland asks for help in the Winter War was approved in this meeting. Hitler came to know the agreement between Stalin and Churchill and details of the attack plan when in February 9, 1940, Germany forced the plane where Stalin’s courier was flying from London to Russia to land in Germany and all documents were photographed. There is a war plan showing the intentions of the Great Britain and France to occupy Scandinavia and to open a northern front against Germany. This forced Hitler to conquer Norway.
The book claims that Stalin did not know that the information had been disclosed. This I find a bit odd. It means that Stalin’s courier, a general, did not tell that the plane was arrested, but maybe there were reasons for not telling it.
Hautamäki also clarifies that the term sphere of interest in the secret appendix of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact did not allow conquering the Baltic countries and Finland, only the right to demand strategic bases in the case of a war. Indeed, the Soviet Union first demanded military basis from the Baltic States and Finland, but later annexed the Baltic States and made a war against Finland.
All this fits quite well to what happened. There are two even more interesting claims in the book. One is that Rudolf Hess flew to Scotland to present a peace plan, as has often been suspected. The other is that Stalin was planning to attack Europe after Germany and Western powers would have exhausted each other.
This second piece of information is very interesting because Germany and the Western powers did not fight each other to exhaustion. Stalin’s prediction was logical as just this happened in the First World War, but it did not happen in the Second. France was conquered very fast. The likely scenario is that there was a secret agreement between Germany and the Western powers. If was necessary to transport most of the Jews, thus Germany was to conquer France, but France did not put much resistance, though it should have been able to do it. There was a very good reason why Germany and the Western powers did not fight to exhaustion: Stalin was waiting for it to invade all of Europe. This agreement between Germany, France and the Great Britain is missing, but it had to exist and it was the reason Rudolf Hess was kept isolated in the prison.
The customary explanation is that Hess got insane. He flew to Scotland and parachuted 19 km off the property of Douglas Douglas-Hamilton. He wanted to meet some politicians to convince George VI to dismiss Churchill and make a peace with Germany. Douglas Douglas-Hamilton had been recently appointer Lord Steward in the Royal Household and he had direct access to the king. Certainly this is a logical explanation, but if so, Hess flew to England to plea a very weak case. He had to be insane, as he was soon going to meet Douglas-Hamilton in Portugal anyway. Germany was not in trouble in 1941. Hitler just wanted to make a peace with the Great Britain in order to start the war against the Soviet Union.
There must be a better reason. Maybe there is. Ian Fleming was at that time an officer in the Naval intelligence and in some way involved in the arrest of Hess. Fleming tried to arrange a meeting between Hess and Aleister Crowley. The meeting did not take place, but it may show that Hess wanted to talk to some secret society. Today this episode is explained in the way that Fleming asked Crowley to lure Hess to Scotland through magic incantations and astrology, but this probably was not the case.
What could explain why Fleming though Hess would like to meet Crowley?
Rudolf Hess was a member of the Thule society before it was dissolved in 1930 and if the Nazis were realizing a plan to transfer Jews to Palestine, there must be a connection to pre-Zionists and Freemasonry, widely taken. Crowley of course belonged to these esoteric Masonic circles as the head of the O.T.O.
There seems to be nothing esoteric in Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, but we can look further. Hess knew about Douglas-Hamilton from his friend Albrecht Haushofer. In the connection of the transport of European Jews it is interesting to notice that Albrecht Haushofer has one Jewish grandparent and so apparently had Eva Brown and Hitler’s one grandparent was unknown, though to have possibly been Jewish. Douglas Douglas-Hamilton apparently had some Nazi sympathies. Albrecht’s father Karl Haushofer was a Thule member and the supervisor and friend of Hess.
I think Hess wanted to meet a high person from this hidden group of people that we know exists somewhere but nobody knows where, the group Carroll Quigley called The Anglo-Americans Establishment. Hess, being a bit outdated in secret societies, though that this group still is a secret society like it once was. So, there is such a group. We know that earlier there were the Memphis and Mizraim lodges and today there still is the B’nai B’rith, which has the ADL that calls everybody anti-Semites, but they also can tell the US president what to say. For some reason Hess though he could fly to Scotland and meet these people there. What could have given him such a strange idea?
I think it is simple. Hess was told to come to Scotland through a communication channel that went through occultists and astrologers. Hitler has an astrologer, who foretold the bomb attack against Hitler, and told where Mussolini was being kept. I do not believe in astrology. This was a communication channel to the Allied side. It was used to lure Hess to Scotland, but we may ask why? Hess was not important in Hitler’s war effort. He was sent there as Hitler’s trusted man to accept changes to the plan. Possibly the changes to the plans included destruction of Germany. To compensate for it the British promised to arrange a fake suicide and escape for Hitler. There still was the occult communication channel, so Hitler was informed of what Hess negotiated. In any case Hitler did proceed with the invasion to the Soviet Union and the Great Britain waited until Germany started to lose the war.
That’s what I got through my methods, but admitted, I am no historian.