The French see the English has politically docile. Is this true?

 

The best thing I like about the French is their militancy. There's a tradition of revolution and taking direct action in France. The barricades were always going up in Paris. Now and again French people take to the streets to show the politicians who's really in charge.

The French see the English has being supine. They think the English allow themselves to be used as doormats by capitalists and politicians. There's a germ of truth in this, but in the 18th century, England was considered one of the most riot prone countries in Europe. In the years leading up to WWI, strikes and industrial unrest, were a common feature of life in Britain. Moreover, the English have never had a Vichy France or a Petain and Laval who collaborated with the Nazis. As Winston Churchill couldn't be certain which side the French would join, he sank the French navy to stop their ships falling into enemy hands. France wasn't liberated by the allies until 1944.

England certainly had Nazi sympathisers like Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists. Nazi sympathisers could also be found amongst the English aristocracy, the Tory Party, and the House of Lords. Many of these aristocrats, like the Duke of Windsor, would have sold us out to the Germans. Lord Semphill, spied for Japan, but was never prosecuted.

The author George Orwell, said that the English upper classes didn't really understand Hitler, but what they did understand, was that Hitler was an anti-communist and on the side of the dividend drawer. There's no doubt that Winston Churchill had fascists sympathies and had initially admired Hitler's political skills and nerve. He also detested Stalin and communism. He visited Italy in 1927, and said that Mussolini - who he called the 'Roman genius' - had done the world a favour by crushing Bolshevism in Italy. Churchill also said that had been Italian, he would have been a fascist. But Churchill was an English patriot, a racist, and a staunch imperialist. He saw Hitler and the Germans has a direct threat to the British Empire and its interests.

As for the 'dividend drawer', we should not forget that while millions of people were being slaughtered in Europe by the Nazis, the German arms manufacturer Krupp, always paid the Dividend on time to its shareholders including its English shareholders.

At the end of the war, the directors of I.G. Farben, including its Jewish directors, were tried for war crimes at Nuremberg. I.G. Farben made the Zyklon-B gas that was used in the gas chambers. The Nazis had called I.G. Farben the citadel of Jewish capitalism.