It is however true that the British belief, that we fought Hitler because of the vileness of his regime and because of his Judophobic fury, is not justified by the facts. Hitler's extermination of the Jews began some time after we declared war. I will not here go into the suggestion that he might not have attempted it without the cover of the war, but there are those who believe this to be true. We had endured his persecution of the Jews of Germany and then of Austria for six years without major complaint until 1939, signed treaties with him, communed with him and his henchmen at the highest level and in convivial occasions, and we took part in his awful 1936 Olympic Games without protest, and did precious little to provide refuge for his victims.

Our war with Hitler never had anything to do with the internal character of his regime. This justification was invented afterwards. If we had chosen our allies on the basis of their goodness, and our enemies on the basis of their badness, then we could hardly have been allied with Stalin for four hard years. In which case, why exactly did we fight Hitler's Germany and about what? And more especially, why did we fight it when and where we did?