Jeffrey Goldberg, June 30, 2010, quoting Yaacov Lozowick:
There was no Nazi invasion of the Sudetenland, no invasion of Slovakia, hardly one of Austria and even less of Bohemia...
Adolf Hitler, March 15, 1939:
Last Sunday the die was cast.... [I have] given the order for the invasion by the German troops and for the incorporation of Czechoslovakia into the German Reich...
Yep. The un-toilet trained Jeffrey Goldberg has defecated on our internet yet again...
Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?
Jeffrey Goldberg:
A Brief Follow-Up on Glenn Greenwald's Nazi Analogy: From Yaacov Lozowick:
Glenn Greenwald today compared the German invasion of Austria, the Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia, with the American invasion of Iraq. By the end of the same post he hedges his bets, and adds that he's not really making the comparison, unless he is but he isn't. Having seen the firestorm of protest he ignited, he than adds three times that he didn't make the comparison.... Here's my input, on a point no-one else seems to be noticing: There was no Nazi invasion of the Sudetenland, no invasion of Slovakia, hardly one of Austria and even less of Bohemia. Nazi Germany brutally invaded many countries, but those weren't among them. Go check the history books and see if I know what I'm talking about. Glenn Greenwald surely doesn't.
The "non-invasion" of Czechoslovakia, according to William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich:
Hitler than said all there was to say.... "And so last Sunday, March 12[, 1939,] the die was cast.... He has given the order for the invasion by the German troops and for the incorporation of Czechoslovakia into the German Reich."
"Hacha and Chvalkovsky," noted Dr. Schmidt," sat as though turned to stone...". But Hitler was not quite through....
The German Army [Hitler continued] had already marched in today [March 15,] and at a barracks where resistance was offered it had been ruthlessly broken.
Tomorrow morning at six o'clock the German Army was to enter [Bohemia] from all sides and the German Air Force would occupy the Czech airfields. There were two possibilities.... [F]ighting. In that case, resistance would be broken by brute force. The other possibility was that the entry of the German troops would take place in a peaceful manner, in which case it would be easy for the Fuehrer to accord Czechoslovakia a generous way of life of her own, autonomy, and a certain measure of national freedom.
He was doing all this... to protect Germany. If last autumn Czechslovakia had not given in the Czech people would have been exterminated. No one would have prevented him doing it. If it came to a fight... in two days the Czech Army would cease to exist. Naturally some Germans would be killed too and this would engender a hatred which would compel him [Hitler said," in self preservation, not to concede autonomy....
The hours were passing. At six o'clock the troops would march in. He was almost ashamed to say it, but for every Czech battalion there was a German division...
