-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Not to co-sign the retroactive determinism, or whatever, but what's to explain about the DOWs? Overthrowing Versailles required war with UK and France.
The individual in question is arguing that World War II is a conspiracy of the British Throne and intelligence services. To prove this, he needs to figure out not only that Britain baited Germany to cross into Poland and France, but then launched a Declaration of War against Russia at the behest of Britain.
Isn't that why Hess flew to England in the first place, to convince England to stand down to allow Germany a free hand in the East? And yet the overture of peace was thrown into the trash and Hess into the Tower of London. Meanwhile, Hitler moved East.
I can't wait to hear the explanation that Hess was flown in to state to the Allies that Hitler was ready to do London's bidding and go to war with Russia.
The narrative woven simply does not hold water.
In that post it looked like he was saying that the USA ripped off the British so hard that the USA took their place, and that Roosevelt knew it and wanted that.
Yes, he said that, and it made no more sense than the other things he said. I would truly like to know which side of the aisle he sits and which country he is from.
Not as if the Germans and Soviets cared for actually DOW-ing formally.
I'd say it's irrelevant. People should have different views on history, it's normal but they should have it's internal logic.
I have no problem with someone making a strong statement that goes against the established narrative. But you have to explain your rationale and lay out your evidence. Here, he creates a chain of events that reads like a supposition supported by Imagination.
Not necessarily. If Hitler showed one thing, it was that the Allies were willing to concede ground regarding the Versailles treaty. Now having a Nazi government at the helm of German government it made it very unlikely there was a point for where it was enough and Germany was once more 'satisfied', even if all territories would've been returned. Which in the cases of Polish territory and A-L was especially unlikely. But a non fascist German government could've pushed for the return of territories in a similar vein, without the need to declare war on its neighbours. And land is the most difficult issue between nation states. Reparations and limit on fleet and army strength can be negotiated and even in OTL there was little oversight from the fomrer Entente to what the Reichswehr was actually up to.
Well said.
Germany could easily have been satisfied under a moderate government asking for reasonable adjustments to the border given time. I find Germans, and I know several native born Germans living in my neighborhood down here in Texas, to be rational if somewhat strong-headed individuals. And great to drink with.
Germany would be satisfied, Hitler never would; their ambitions should be clearly separated.
I am a silly American, but it concerns me when you watch the agenda of an intelligent nation hijacked by greedy men with peculiar intent. Who is to say it might not happen again, and you wouldn't know about it until after the coup was complete while the ashes of the fire were still smoldering.
But it does bring us back to the point made by the individual above that caused my hackles to rise by suggesting that World War II is a con game whereby England is sold to America for a bag of beans, and Hitler was some kind of patsy duped into doing their bidding to force the issue. That is a new one. And it overlooks the major gaping wound left behind.
Last edited:
Yes, your view being logically coherent is the first step, validate it with evidences is second step.
I'd say even national socialist Germany could have succeeded diplomatically with a much slower and much more cautious approach like respecting Munich agreement and waiting years before antagonizing Poland. Actually i think if Hitler didn't do it, Stalin had done it. But that shifted international focus away from Germany, making further cautious advances possible.
Don't forget Hitler was awarded Time man of the year after Munich. He respected that - at least for a longer period - and he remained internationally popular i think.
I agree.
It seems very unlikely to me that the Allies would have given up/back the reparations, territories, or force restrictions for any type of German government's begging. Provocations, backed by the threat of escalation, would have been necessary. As far as I know the Western powers didn't officially reverse the force restrictions either, they just didn't want to deal with enforcement.
If it's true that the German government wanted peace after France fell, that suggests there was actually a point where Germany would have been "satisfied", at least with UK and France. Germany's other enemies in the United States and Soviet Union are a different kind of problem.
That doesn't seem very easy or likely to me.
Hypothetically; what would be the reasonable adjustments and what actions would the moderate government take to get it peacefully?
IRL, Germany hasn't been NS for a long time. Have there been any pro-German adjustments made besides re-unification?
Likewise with Japan. I understand the Russians are still holding on to Japanese territory and those negotiations haven't gotten Japan what it wants, and Japan has been reconstructed for a long time, and the USSR was barely involved in the Pacific war.
- 1
You misunderstand the structure of post-war Europe. @Mder1 can speak quite eloquently about the benefit to its inhabitants of the Economic Union and a One State Europe and how German pride and discipline should be the example that leads the way. And he makes a lot of sense.
It is about economic control, not military control. You control the money, you control the people.
- 1
Okay; well what you're alluding to here doesn't make any sense to me, and the comment seems facially outlandish. The supposed benefits of their economic and political union are not at all clear, German pride looks dead everywhere except their ostracized right wing minority, and it would contradict directly with driving an elite anti-national political super-union project.
Economic control is not a substitute for legal political control. The whole point is to acquire political control.
For the sake of truth the Reich never antagonized the USA, Hitler has kinda adored it.
The point is that the Munich Agreement was a great fiasco for Hitler. He wanted to fight a victorious war and instead he got a pesky diplomatic agreement.
How on Earth can a person who did not shed blood/razed a city be respected as a great conqueror?
A rational German government would have realized that in 1939 (After Memel)
- they achieved victory
- the armaments cycle is working against them... the T-34/Sherman/Spitfire/P-51/Long Tom/A-19 etc is going to come and they have already commited their industry to produce inferior equipment
Thus a rational German government would have worked for cooling the tensions down, digest what they have. And if they aim for world conquest repeat the process somewhat later be the first nation who field an MBT/functional jet plane/homing torpedo etc.
Hitler... well he would be dead by the time this could happen realistically, thus it would be the guy after him who would got all those statues and avenues/battleships named after him. Which was of course intolerable.
This is 100% correct. It could have worked in the long run this way. And also the fact that Stalin and the Japanese weren't exactly pigeons either helped the Reich look a lot better in this case.
I don't think Stalin would have ever dared to start a war first on his own, taking a risk of all capitalist pigs to ally against the USSR 