Then again there was “The Counterfeit Traitor” with William Holden.
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Reading a great book now called ‘Beyond the Call’ about a US bomber pilot who was given a diplomatic passport to evac American POWs who had been liberated from camps and Poland and outright abandoned by the Soviets in Winter 1945.
No food no warm clothes and turned out into the Polish countryside to survive or end up in Soviet internment camps which were worse than the German POW camps.
Makes me despise Stalin more than I already did.
They sound naïve. However what was the harm in their attempt? If they had been successful and had WW II been avoided, the world would have been far better off. Also not sure their efforts did not have some effect. The war would have ended with a British defeat if Hitler had not stopped the German army from completing the defeat and capture of the British BEF at Dunkirk. Some historians speculated that Hitler, perhaps influenced by these “amateur spies” thought he could enter into a mutually beneficial peace with these types of British leaders if he showed mercy and allowed the British army to withdraw. Also Rudolph Hess made that famous solo flight to Scotland. Was it his intent or impression that he could make a peace deal after being influenced by those amateur spies? Believe there is more to the story.
These “amateur spies” may have confused the German leadership. Hitler lost his best chance for victory when he pulled the German army back at Dunkirk. Historians have arrived at no consensus as to his reasons. If they had been capyured or killed,Britain would have sued for peace.
Hitler botched things up by grabbing all of Czechoslovakia.
I’m not unsympathetic to some of the British Establishment’s attempts to steer the fascists toward a less brutal and less destructive path.
The shadow hanging over everyone in Europe was communism. Its easy to forget that now. Both the British and the Soviets were trying to harness the fascists against the other. Each had it in their minds that they would sit on the sidelines more or less while the fascists and the other party went at it. They - be they the Western Democracies or the Commies, would then swoop in and pick off the weakened victor of that clash.
You cannot appease evil.
Be ruthless is what needs to be done.