Liverpool legend John Barnes causes social media uproar with controversial claim on Adolf Hitler and black Jews

Liverpool legend John Barnes caused a social media uproar with his recent comments on Adolf Hitler and black Jews. Barnes claimed that World War II would not have taken place if Hitler had invaded non-European countries.

World War II was fought between 1939 and 1945. An estimated 35 million to 50 million people were killed in the war. Barnes, however, believes the catastrophic event would not have happened if Hitler had decided to invade Africa instead. He wrote on Twitter (via Daily Star):

“If he took over black countries in Africa, the other non-white countries in Asia or South America, where the Allies didn’t have a vested interest, would WW2 have occurred?”

Barnes added:

“WW2 started because the Allies wanted to stop Germany becoming too powerful, nothing to do with right or wrong. Had Hitler left the European Jews alone and went to Ethiopia and committed the same atrocities to the black Falasha Jews, I doubt WW2 would have started.”

The Liverpool legend also said on the Rob Moore's Disruptors podcast:

"The genocide, destruction, exploitation. The Nazi ideology was based on that. If Adolf Hitler did what he did in Africa or anywhere else, the rest of Europe would've accepted that. But you can't do it to white Europeans."

Nazi Germany's Hitler, Fascist Italy's Benito Mussolini, and Imperial Japan's Hirohito formed the Axis alliance during World War II by signing the Tripartite Pact in 1940. Their ideology was nationalist and militarist. They also had an anti-communism policy.

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Is Liverpool legend John Barnes right in his comments?

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Liverpool legend John Barnes' comments on the matter are debatable. However, one thing that can be said is that there can never be any competition between horrors.

Former Terrorism Law advisor Lord Carlile perfectly explained the matter as he told the Jewish Chronicle:

“Comparing the Holocaust with the undoubted systemic persecution of black people (in multiple settings) runs the risk of diluting the importance and impact of both. The Holocaust was a planned trauma of extermination of fellow Europeans under the guise of racial purification. Jews support strongly the exposure of the wickedness of slavery and discrimination."