Biography-Winston Churchill: Hitler enemy and imperialist

On May 8, 1945, Winston Churchill, 70 years old and for five years Prime Minister of the War Coalition, stands at the peak of his career. At 3 p.m. local time, he announces “Victory in Europe” – the war against Japan should last more than three months. After almost ten years, lower house elections were overdue on July 5, 1945. Churchill took part in the Potsdam conference with Stalin and Truman from July 17th. It seemed hard to imagine that he would not return to the negotiating table there. But instead of the charismatic, often bombastic Churchill, the quiet, inconspicuous, consensus -oriented clement came to Potsdam on July 28th. For the majority of the British voters, this was a rational decision: Churchill might have been the right war prime minister, for the urgently desired welfare state and reconstruction was unsuitable.

Born into the family of the Dukes of Marlborough in 1874, son of a conservative minister and a wealthy American, Winston Spencer Churchill led an adventurous life. He became a professional soldier, war reporter, diversity and parliamentarian. In 1904 he moved from the conservatives to the liberals; He supported her advanced social policy, but made himself hated as the interior minister at the unions when he violently acted against strikers in southern Wales.

After the bloody-failed Gallipoli offensive, he had to resign as Minister of Navy in 1915. In various ministerial posts, he temporarily bought military intervention against the Bolsheviks in Russia and a tough course against Irish struggle for independence until 1922. In 1924 he moved back to the conservatives and turned out to be a less competent treasure chancellor. The end of the conservative government in 1929 also seemed to be the top politician.

Churchill’s attitude was often racist. But he loathed the anti -Semitic policy of Nazis.

He initially shows certain sympathy towards Mussolini. But he decidedly rejected the Nazis. At the end of the 1930s, Churchill was one of the few of the British right who thought Hitler Germany was the greatest threat to Britain. In May 1940 he replaced Chamberlain as Prime Minister. After the German attack on the USSR in June 1941, he relied entirely on an alliance with Stalin, which was almost as important to him as the stem of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

After the election defeat in July 1945, Churchill became opposition leader, but left the work of Antony Eden. In October 1951, the conservatives won a narrow election victory, Churchill was again prime minister, but he was hardly able to work for health reasons from 1953. Reluctantly, he finally left Eden in 1955.

Franziska Augstein quotes the great Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, everything Churchill did was bad. “Only one thing he did properly: he led the nation well through the Second World War.” The author does not quite follow this dictum, but it is quite plausible. In June 1940, Churchill himself shaped the famous formulation of the “Finest Hour”, the best and most worthy phase of its history, which could become the British defense against the Nazis.

Of course, Churchill did not only secure the survival of the UK, but he was the most important inspirator of the will to resist. From 1943 at the latest, Churchill’s role becomes increasingly problematic than reliability and post -war planning become more important than war rhetoric.

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Franziska Augstein, journalist and a doctorate historian, has presented a voluminous yet entertaining book. The many anecdotes are amusing, but it is often at the expense of substance. Augstein emphasizes that they want to deliver a biography of the person, no historical time description. But Churchill’s life is primarily of interest because of his political work.

One of the strongest passages includes the final chapter “Death and Transfiguration”, which describes Churchill reception and also the sharp post-colonial criticism of him, with regard to his India policy, but also of his supposed anti-Semitism. Churchill was certainly strongly influenced by stereotypicals, but he loathed the anti -Semitic policies of the Nazis and stood for not leaving the Nazis in Europe – the effects of political action are more important than subjective attitudes and ugly comments.

Churchill’s attitude towards India and the British colonies, which was undoubtedly imperialistically and racist, can also be viewed primarily with a view to his actions. One of the darkest results of his reign is the terrible famine in Bengal Indian, which fell victim to between one and four million people in 1943. Even if the occasionally raised genocide allegation of a review can hardly withstand, the British government certainly has a significant responsibility. Racist superiority and colonial imperialism are not the most important cause, but they have favored them.

Franziska Augstein: Winston Churchill. Biography. 615 pages, born, 30 €.