[WmShirerAdmirer]

Like you said, pretty awful to even contemplate (something Truman had to think about right?). Thanks for insight in your reply.

[CatoRenasci]

Your're welcome. Which of Shirer's books do you admire? I actually found Berlin Diary more useful as an historical document than The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: the former was essentially a primary source by a witness to events, the latter a very good, if somewhat popularized, secondary work. I think I prefer Alan Bullock's Hitler biography (esp. the 3rd edition) as well as such works as Ernst Notle's The Three Faces of Fascism (original title Der Faschismus in seiner Epoche, which is unfortunately out of print in English. There are newer editions under different titles in German. The Nazizeit has always fascinated me, especially the way Germany was transformed first from a rather repressed monarchy into a libertine society in the post-war period, and thence into totalitarian fascism. IMHO, the Islamofascists have all of the faults of Nazi Germany with none of its virtues (which, in truth and lest I be taken as having anything good to say about the Nazis, were simply left-over European virtues of hard work, discipline, engineering, etc. rather than virtues of the Nazis).