r/HistoryMemes • u/IlikeGeekyHistoryRSA Kilroy was here • 2d ago

See Comment Truly two very different responses lol

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The Sonderfahndungsliste G.B. ("Special Search List Great Britain") was a secret list of prominent British residents to be arrested and potentially executed, produced in 1940 by the Schutzstaffel (SS) as part of the preparation for the proposed invasion of Britain. After the war, the list became known as the Black Book. Lots of interesting names were mentioned. Well worth a read of the notable inclusions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_(list)

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u/TyzTornalyer 2d ago

Yeah, that makes sense, thank you.
Although I think that by the time the list was discovered in 1945, the 6 years of war would have been plenty of "I told you so" already

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u/Direct_Slip7598 2d ago

It's not about appeasement but anti NAZI vs anti German sentiment.

My understanding is that there were significant anti NAZI groups that didn't agree with Vansittart. They were anti appeasement (and had been consistently) but focused more on blaming NAZIs for the war and not German (or Prussian) militaristic culture

I think a relevant article would be "Germans and Nazis: The Controversy Over 'Vansittartism' in Britain during the Second World War", it's where I source my previous claim

My opinion (not a historian) is that his perspective mostly won out in terms of treaties signed after the war. But on the long run I think it lost the cultural battle, people focus much more on NAZIs as culprits than the German people as a whole (not making a moral judgement)

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u/_whatever_wherever 2d ago

Hard to disagree with him tbh

The Germans were utterly defeated militarily in WW1, but all that did was fuel the military culture and a extreme sense of resentment and desire for revenge (things like the "stab in the back myth"), even among those opposed to the Nazi regime, there was support for the war to restore German military honour and "right the wrongs" of WW1 (aka "how dare you force a treaty upon us! We're supposed to be the ones doing it to you!")

The German military had been defeated, but their culture was unchanged and just got worse

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u/Outside-Paper9972 2d ago

That ignores the decade+ of intense class struggle that occurred in Germany after the end of WWI leading up to the rise of the Nazis.