Like Joseph Kennedy.
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Marge Schott.
We’ve gotten this far without the name Neville Chamberlain?
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My impression is that Chamberlain was simply a fool who wanted to avoid war at any cost, not a sympathizer.
His king, on the other hand …
(and I could be wrong about Neville. There were people rooting for the fascists in EVERY country. We like to think otherwise, but the nazis did not arise in a vacuum)
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Quisling
I agree with this. He definitely was not a Nazi sympathizer. He wanted to avoid war and trusted/believed Hitler too long.
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At some point, and this applies today as much as it did in 1935, you have to start believing people when they keep telling you who they are.
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Putin’s lapdog in Belarus DID show the whole plan which included Moldova at the very least. Then after a few years the “oppressed Russian speakers” in Romania, Poland, Latvia, and Estonia need freeing.
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I don’t think you’re wrong about Chamberlain. Perhaps history has taken a more charitable/nuanced view in the last few decades, but my understanding is that his overriding fear was a repeat of 1914-18 and believed his actions, however morally compromised they were in the face of someone like Hitler, were justified and necessary in that cause.
I would also point out that we had strident fascist groups here in the United States in the 30’s. There was a particularly popular one on Long Island as I recall.
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There was an entire government (and oh-so-willing population) in Italy.
The Abraham Lincoln Battalion was established by those wanting to fight for the Republic during the war. The first volunteers sailed from New York City on 25th December, 1936 and joined the other International Brigades at Albacete.
An estimated 3,000 men fought in the battalion. Of these, over 1,000 were industrial workers (miners, steel workers, longshoremen). Another 500 were students or teachers. Around 30 per cent were Jewish and 70 per cent were between 21 and 28 years of age. The majority were members of the American Communist Party whereas others came from the Socialist Party of America and Socialist Labor Party.
Prescott Bush
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This is the guy I was mainly waiting for. Anyway, I guess the point is there was no real shortage of these guys running around back then, same as it ever was.
The quote below is from the Anti-Defamation League. I have no dog in this fight, but I am curious why you say this. The ADL certainly is no friend of Nazi sympathizers.
“Rumors about the alleged Nazi “ties” of the late Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, have circulated widely through the Internet in recent years. These charges are untenable and politically motivated.
Despite some early financial dealings between Prescott Bush and a Nazi industrialist named Fritz Thyssen (who was arrested by the Nazi regime in 1938 and imprisoned during the war), Prescott Bush was neither a Nazi nor a Nazi sympathizer.”
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The imperial fascists of Italy always make me incredulous. It’s a wonder that they were ever able to organize and mobilize any coherent strategy. Have you been to Italy? Have you seen how they operate?
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I suspect there was a number of supposed “sympathizers” who were really just wealthy tycoons and the like (you know, sociopaths) who had decided that they would be better off if the US did not get involved, and would do business with the devil himself if there was a buck in it.
Filed under the “I don’t think that means what you think it means” category:
“Russia’s representative at the European Organization for Security and Cooperation (OCSE), Konstantin Gavrilov, said that Moscow would consider the supply of depleted uranium ammunition (by the UK) to Ukraine as using “dirty nuclear bombs”.”
The radioactive risk of depleted uranium is nil. It emits alpha particles, which don’t even have enough energy to transit human skin.
Bush and his father-in-law were involved in creating an American bank for the Thyssen family to distribute their assets around the world. Even after the U.S. entered World War II, the bank and other Bush companies continued to work with the German companies until the bank was seized under the Trading With the Enemy Act.
It was likely more greed than Nazi sympathy, but still awful.
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Thyssen was imprisoned by the Nazis in 1938. I am going with the ADL’s opinion because of what the organization is.
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