Winston Churchill and a pro-Nazi senator

Dear Prime Minister,

It is with dismay that I am receiving images of the Royal Air Force blitz against Dortmund and many other German cities.

These aerial attacks are causing unmitigated civilian casualties on a scale never seen before. It is thus encumbered upon me to urge restraint in your operations. Escalation may have unforeseen consequences as a global conflict looms on the horizon.

You have every right to defend yourself; that is axiomatic. But bombing Berlin and other German cities where millions of innocent German citizens dwell will not bring this conflict to a felicitous end.

The naval blockade of Germany could cause starvation and death reminiscent of the calamities of the First World War, a war we both remember well. I implore you to lift the besiegement to allow urgently needed humanitarian aid to reach civilians trapped in this conflict. Accordingly, I have asked the Administration to work with U.S. and Royal Navies to establish safe delivery zones ranging from Flensburg on the Danish border in the West to Świnoujście at the German-Polish border on the island of Usedom in the East. I, therefore, call on you to prioritize the safety of German civilians over the military campaign. You ought to confine your attacks to military targets only. If armed forces objectives are adjacent to civilian locations, you must avoid targeting these facilities scrupulously. Also, I cannot emphasize strongly enough the importance of designating safe civilian areas in Germany and assure us that these zones and emergency relief delivery ports in the Baltic would never be attacked.

I am deeply concerned that the first R.A.F. raids on the interior of Germany, which took place on March 19, 1940, at Hornum; on the night of 10–11 May 1940, Dortmund; and on the night of June 7, 1940, it dropped eight bombs of 250 kilograms on the German capital. These bombing sorties have continued unabated. The Reich Ministry of Health has expressed growing concern about the death toll in German cities as hospitals and many other civilian targets have been hit. The authorities in Berlin have announced that between 1939 and 1941, more than a million men, women, and children have been killed. This is not a proportionate response, as few Britons have died in German raids thus far.

I would be less than honest if I did not tell you that far too many Germans have been killed; far too many have suffered terribly. Many thoughtful observers on this side of the pond have taken the position that the indiscriminate bombing of German cities could be a war crime. You will recall that The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 were the first multilateral treaties that addressed the conduct of warfare and were primarily based on the Lieber Code, which was signed and issued by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln to the Union Forces of the United States concerning the protection of human rights on April 24, 1863, during the American Civil War. Many in the Senate expect Great Britain to comport itself under the norms of international treaties to which your country is a signatory.

Mr. Prime Minister, remember that many German and Italian Americans are here in the U.S.A. They are shocked and dismayed by what they see in newsreels about the damage inflicted on many German cities. These communities are exerting pressure on Congress, and we cannot ignore their pleas. Our universities are up in arms as anti-British riots are creating havoc in our cities. Public opinion, too, initially supportive of Britain, is turning against the U.K. Your country risks becoming a pariah among nations if you continue on the current course.

I know you are pressuring F.D.R. to find a way around the Neutrality Act. Still, as German casualties continue to mount, Britain will face stiff opposition to providing military hardware under any circumstances, including under the proposed Lend-Lease Agreement.

You may decide to show goodwill by considering a pause in the hostilities for six months to allow desperately needed humanitarian aid to reach German citizens in dire need. I hope that a cease-fire will follow a pause. Diplomacy must be given every chance, however remote, to prevent the death of German civilians who are entirely innocent and are suffering the consequences of your country’s decision to declare war on Germany.

On October 29, 1939, after the U.K. decided to start an unjust war, Herr Hitler renewed his peace offer by stating: “My chief endeavor has been to rid our relations with France of all trace of ill will… I have always expressed to France my desire to bury forever our ancient enmity… I have devoted no less effort to the achievement of Anglo-German friendship… To achieve this great end [of peace], the leading nations of this continent will one day have to come together to draw up, accept, and guarantee a statute on a comprehensive basis that will ensure for them all a sense of security, of calm – in short, of peace… It is equally impossible that such a conference, which is to determine the fate of this continent for many years to come, could carry on its deliberations while cannons are thundering or mobilized armies are bringing pressure to bear upon it.”

Your response to this call was “Blood Sweat and Tears” when you became Prime Minister. Frankly, this was not the rejoinder we had expected.

You simply cannot bomb your way to victory; you must compromise and seek a just solution to end this war. There is no reason why Great Britain and Germany could not live side by side in peace once the legitimate and inalienable rights of the German Nation are recognized. Indeed, this conflict cannot be resolved until and unless Germany’s historic rights in the East are recognized. For centuries the Teutonic Order under the banner of the Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights ruled Poland, Lithonia and Latvia ruled these realms until illegally occupied by Slavic settlers. These settlements were obstacles to peace and now that these lands have been reunited with Reich, there is no reason to wage war.

I trust common sense will prevail, and the mass murder of German men, women, and children will come to an end.

Senator Ernest Lundeen

P.S.: This letter is imaginary, but it highlights the flagrant absurdities of the current ultra-left deliberations on how Israel should defend herself.

During the Blitzkrieg 43, 000 U.K. citizens died; 5.6 million German civilians perished in Allied bombing- although the Nazis did not use their population as human shields. In the same war, the U.S.A. lost 12,000 civilians; Japan lost 2.9 million. The U.S.A. lost 2,977 civilians as a result of 9/11; the toll of non-combatant deaths during the war on terror and ISIS is 4.2 million in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The U.S.A. did not start these wars, and the Americans have never targeted civilians on purpose. It appears that these casualties were collateral as the U.S. had nothing to gain from attacking civilians, thus inflaming anti-U.S. hostility. Still, neutralizing enemy forces took precedence if civilians were near a legitimate military target.

Accordingly, the idea that the Nazi behemoth could have been defeated without causing massive collateral non-combatant deaths is ludicrous. Most regrettably, civilians die in wars; blood and steel struggles are not morality plays! If the war is just, it must conform to the laws of warfare. If civilians are used as human shields by the party that started the hostilities under the Geneva Conventions, the responsibility for such death lies with the aggressor.

The Nazis took great pain in hiding the proceedings of the Wannsee Conference about the logistics of the Holocaust; many, among the present detractors of Israel, openly celebrated the mass murder of Jews on October 7. The aims of Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah, and their supporters in the West are identical to the Nazi’s Final Solution. The Third Reich was determined, until the very end in 1945, to render Europe Judenrein; the Hamas terrorists and their enablers are equally resolved to eradicate Israel between the river and the sea.

Suppose Israel cannot fight Hamas the way the Allies fought the Nazis. In that case, Israel will lose again (Hamas and Hezbollah remaining in control of their territories is a loss for Jerusalem), and the Axis of Evil will have been emboldened.

The letter above is fictitious, but many Hamas-supporting Democrats who echo such sentiments today, urging Israeli restraint, threatening sanctions and even the suspension of military support, forget that, as the British PM, W.C, observed: “Virtuous motives, trammeled by inertia and timidity, are no match for armed and resolute wickedness.”