A Note on Carpet Biting, and some answers to questions

A few small points. The description of Hitler as a 'carpet biter' ('Teppichfresser') occurs in William Shirer's Berlin Diary, in an account of Hitler's 1938 Godesberg meeting with Chamberlain. I think he attributes it to German journalists who were retailing rumours of terrible rages. In my childhood, when the idea that Hitler's actions were best explained by madness was common, I recall hearing the phrase used a lot by adults.

I don't want to start a discussion on this slightly delicate subject, but I think some contributors are confusing it with the wholly different expression 'pillow biter',  which I seem to recall, entered currency during and after in the strange trial of several leading figures in the then Liberal Party (they were acquitted) at the Old Bailey in the late 1970s.

I do not doubt that the events in Ms Olsen' s book have been covered elsewhere, nor do I suggest that this book is a breakthrough in research - though I think the America First affiliations of JFK , Kingman Brewster (his NY Times obituary didn't mention this)  and, as it happens, Gerald Ford, may come as a surprise to many.  I note that one contributor is so incredulous of this, that he thinks (thanks a lot!) that I have mistaken JFK for his father Joe, whose hostility to intervention is so well-known as to be a cliche,  and would be no suprise to anyone. No, it's JFK.

The point is that this is an accessible popular account of an era which is little-discussed in Britain, which has made a major impact in the USA but which has not even been published here.

One reader seems to think that I can't see why the USA's people should have wanted to intervene in the 1939 war. On the contrary, I am amazed that the USA did intervene, and keenly aware that they very nearly didn't.

In fact, when the Chicago Tribune, in 1941, revealed the USA's supposed 'war plans' for invading Europe, Hitler came close to switching his forces westwards, away from the USSR.  to knock Britain out of the war before the USA could send an Army to this country. Pearl Harbor changed his mind.

 

Given the incredible closeness of this outcome, and the heavy price exacted by the USA for its support, I am driven back to my original point - why did Britain think that entering a war against Germany in 1939 in any way suited her interests?

 

One reader suggest that I am an 'admirer' of David Irving. I most certainly am no such thing.