Sex, scandal and high society in Chips Channon’s uncensored diaries
newstatesman.com
newstatesman.com
Can't believe how much UK period drama shit gets lapped up, it's a drama based on the rich of the times and ignores what they did to everyone else
Later still, this self-analysis by the man whose friends called him “wicked boy” leads Channon to the most extraordinary political theory. He is analysing the division in London between pro-democracy politicians and the pro-Nazis. And on 29 May 1936 he decides he finally understands what is going on: “It is curious the division of racial mentality, and it reduces itself to a question of sex; all people, whether male or female, who are attracted by men and force are pro-German. The ‘softies’ like Hubert Duggan, who make a cult of female-worship, are pro-French. Duff Cooper, who adores women to an almost insane pitch, and is always trying to rape them in taxis etc, is immeasurably pro-French. Sometimes I wonder whether he is not also a bit pro-war?”
Nobody who was worried about their future reputation would leave a pair of sentences like that lying around.
We don’t read diarists because we admire them, but because they were there, and they note down what they saw and heard. “Chips” Channon was wrong about almost everything. But do we read Boswell, Casanova, Pepys, Alan Clark or even Sasha Swire for their judgement? We do not. We read them to be taken aback, and to question ourselves. Exhausting, massive, genuinely shocking, and still revelatory, this new edition of the Channon diaries is a work of irrigation and genuine scholarship. Few people may read them from cover to cover, but the stories they contain will rattle noisily around our culture for decades ahead.
Interesting that even in 1936 the distinction is French vs German; Czechoslovakia and Poland were just trophies to be acquired in the dispute between the great powers.
Btw, I don't know the workings of 1930's and 1940's British society, but were these the type of people who condoned turning away the Jews of the SS Exodus?
Edit: To be fair, the US turned away the MS St. Louis, of which 1/3 of the passengers were subsequently killed.
Overt Nazism was certainly present; not just Rothermere and the Mail, but people like https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_Mitford and Oswald Moseley.
https://fullfact.org/online/queen-nazi-salute/
Which is one of the reasons Hitler expected Germany and the UK to come to an accommodation. And why he was surprised - even blindsided - when the UK decided to declare war instead.
One debatable defence is that this was still pre-Holocaust, and outright anti-Semitism hadn't yet devolved into mechanised mass murder and enslaved brutalisation.
So it was possible with some moral gymnastics to justify the Nazis as better than the Bolsheviks, who were considered a far more immediate threat to the British ruling class.
Even so. There's no question there was always an undercurrent of support in high places. And in fact the British mythology of Churchillian resistance is at least as much about a nationalist myth of pushback against Germany as a virile and potent competing empire as about fighting the immoral horrors of Nazi fascism and genocide.
The Axis powers started a campaign of world domination and the countries not in the club were not very happy about that. For one, they foresaw being next to be conquered. And no one wants to be reduced to servitude to a much greater power. That is why the war was fought.
I don't think Germany was any more into world domination than Britain and France with their extensive world empires.
Germany lacked secure access to strategic resources and they knew it. Their policies of autarky reinforced this view.
The Nazi leadership also appeared to believe there would be an inevitable conflict between what they saw as Jewish led Bolshevism and the world.
Primary sources are the best for these kinds of questions. “The truth about hitler” (1935) by Churchill provides a good summary of his thinking well before the war broke out.
Everything about Germany at the time was alarming. It’s baffling how no one took it seriously. A militarized dictatorship is a clear threat of another war - which is exactly what happened. Compared to democracies, there is infinitely more danger as an aggressor in conflict. The decision comes down to one man and opposition is silenced.
He also mentions the anti-Semitic views which were already clear in Mein Kampf to everyone. This was not the primary reason of course as peace and security in Europe was always paramount, but if Germany wanted to be anti-Semitic itself all the Jews could leave instead of being hunted down over Europe by a single invading nation and left nowhere to hide which would have left options rather than war.
All in all the idea of “pushback against a competing empire” doesn’t seem to play in my reading of things at all.
https://archive.org/stream/W.S.ChurchillTheTruthAboutHitler1...
There are many things wrong with the UK's view of its own history but the major problem with its understanding of the war is its self image as a plucky underdog. It is absolutely not about a "nationalist myth of pushback against Germany as a virile and potent competing empire". If anything Britain has been at fault for forgetting about its Empire and the moral problems that came with that.
And France also has a troubling history with nazism. But like in every country, that's not what's being taught in schools/TV.
We also explain the rationale followed by Petain and the context of it (he sacrificed our honor for the sake of mere survival, in his elder mind) and how this opened the door to enforcement militia ideologically in line with the Nazis, who are the ancestors of what is now LePen's party.
Maybe not at 7, but by 18 if you listened in class, you got a pretty clear picture of the darkest aspect of it.
And it's not just during WWII we behaved in shameful ways, it started with the country. I challenge you to find someone who paid attention in school and still glorify the revolution or Napoleon, or the Commune, or colonialism.
Are you more than 30 (like me) by any chance? That's also the education i received growing up in france, but history schoolbooks have been criticized for rewriting history since at least Sarkozy. Also it appears the left-wing, critical history teachers from my youth are a threatened species, as these are slowly pushed to suicide by the administration and/or placed on administrative leave.
At least it is my understanding that education and critical thought have been heavily under attack in France in the past decade, especially in public schools. At least that's what i understand from younger persons i meet and teachers i know who are still teaching in middle and high schools.
For example, the Nakba has become a taboo in history classes, criticizing national symbols of the french colonial empire has become illegal, teachers have been instructed to denounce to the police their pupils who have questions about religious terrorism and racist caricatures, and mandatory national service has been almost reinstated already (only stopped by coronavirus).
We have been on a strong rise to fascism for at least the past two decades, so of course they are rewriting history and making sure there is room for interpretation in collaborating with nazis. This is not just in schools though, Eric Zemmour and other public figures have ardently defended the memory of french fascism for years on public television.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:British_spies_for_the...