To quote Charles Schultz: *Sigh*

absolutely disgusting. this is straight up pro-Hitler revisionism / sympathizing. how breath-takingly disgusting.

As a careful amateur scholar of the Nazi era, I read Buchanan's little venture into "alternative history" carefully. He did not exonerate Hitler. He did not say that Hitler was right or wrong. He merely asked "Was the incident of September 1, 1939 sufficient cause for a war?" Kind of a stupid question, but not wrong nor does it constitute "Hitler-apologia". It's merely pointless speculation, and pretty innocuous speculation at that.

Of course Hitler did not want war...he simply wanted all the countries he invaded to peacefully give up. Just like al qaeda did not want war, they just wanted Americans to peacefully burn to death.
Buchanan wins DB of the week award

Until Buchanan opened his mouth, I never understood why people were reluctant to elect John Kennedy as the first Catholic president. Read John McLaughlin's wikipedia entry. It puts Buchanan into a perspective where his nuttiness makes a kind of twisted sense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McLaughlin_(host)

Poor Hitler... sucked into a war not of his choosing. Just like Bush...

That is the worst, and most intellectually bankrupt idea I've ever heard. Hitler invades a territory and he "didn't want war"?

It would be like Mexico invading Arizona. Technically, they once owned it, but if they invaded it and that war started, it would be entirely Mexico's fault and doing. Why should Poland give up any territory to Germany? Why would Germany expect Poland to "negotiate" with them?

For those who think they know history...Hitler used a "staged attack" and "phony intelligence" as an excuse to invade Poland....sound familiar..? Pat Buchanan is now Hitler apologist..? while the right-wing bat-shit crazies are calling our President, Hitler?...gee, Pat..trying to draw a parallel with Hitlers invasion of Poland and "Afghanistan becoming Obama's Viet Nam" is that the reason for such a "reasonable seeming" statement...? I see you got some bites...

MSNBC should no longer feature Pat Buchanan as a compensated commentator.

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By Pat's logic, does that make the US partly responsible for 9/11? Given that one of Osama's stated goals was the removal of US troops from Saudi Arabia (even back with the 1993 WTC bombing), that would follow...

Also, didn't he make a big deal about how anybody that wanted to withdraw from Iraq was just like the people who appeased Hitler?

Buchanan's argument is that if Britain and France had not given Poland a war guarantee in 1939 there either would have been no war, as Poland would have ceded Danzig to Germany or any war would have been limited to Germany and Poland. There would thus have been no Holocaust, since the German decision to murder the Jews under their control was made in the entirely different context of general European war in 1941. This is explained in the book Fateful Choices, 1939-1941,by the eminent English historian Ian Kershaw, which discusses the steps along the terrible path.
In 1939, Germany sought to promote the emigration of the Jews under its control, coupled of course with vicious persecution but usually not outright murder. Buchanan has undoubtedly veered close to Nazi apologetics on occasion but not really here.

Buchanan's critics here assume that world conquest was always Hitler's aim but the story is complicated. Certainly in 1939 Germany did not want war with either Britain or France until they declared war on Germany. As Buchanan rightly says, Germany made no territorial claims on France. Admittedly, the Germans may have made additional territorial claims if war had not been declared in 1939 but there is no way to know for sure.

The implicit assumption here is that the outcome of the Second World War was uniformly positive. Certainly the destruction of the Nazi regime was a very good thing, as was the defeat of Japan, but the cost, e.g. 60 million dead,including 90 percent of the prewar Jewish population of Europe, whom the allies did little to save, was hideous. One might also note the use of atomic weapons against Japan. In his History of Zionism, Walter Laqueur says that VE Day in Jewish Palestine was a day of mourning. The story is more complex than the Good War narrative permits. Buchanan may be a flawed messenger but this is not a closed question. I would also note that the attempt to get him off the air is redolent of hostility to freedom of expression.