Posted on 02/24/2003 6:49:05 PM PST by Agabriel
WW2 Alternate History: All that is required for the triumph of evil
As the war on the Pacific and European fronts grows more intense costing hundreds of thousands of American lives and faced with the prospect of being forced to fight a surging Soviet army should an occupation of Nazi Germany take place; Allied leaders ponder the offer of a negotiated armistice with Nazi Germany.
On December 12, 1943, representatives of Great Britain, France the United States and Germany sign an armistice treaty under which all German troops are to leave any captured territory on the Western front and withdraw to the French border, cease developing any nuclear technologies and destroy their reserves of chemical weapons while allowing inspectors to monitor compliance.
This accord is initially controversial, especially to those who argue that within the territory Nazi Germany still controls, Hitler is carrying out ethnic cleansing of minorities and torturing and executing political opponents. But supporters of the accord point out that Nazi Germany is not the only country in the world that massacres ethnic minorities and that the Allies could not possibly intervene in every country that does. Should those Hitler is massacring really want their freedom, they need to rise up and overthrow him.
Furthermore they argue that a conquest of Nazi Germany would be costly and incite enmity of the United States among Germans and Aryans around the world which would in the long run only lead to more racial intolerance and ethnic cleansing around the world as outrage over the deaths of Germans and war on Germany would lead to increased Neo-Nazi recruitment. It would also destabilize the region by allowing the USSR to make serious gains in Eastern Europe and in the vacuum created by the fall of Hitler, possibly even within Germany and Western Europe itself.
The policy of containing Hitler however begins to show serious flaws very soon after. In the strip of Eastern European territories that Germany still controls come reports of growing massacres and death camps. The Allies pledge their support to those in Eastern Europe and those Germans within Germany itself prepared to rise against Hitler. On June 24 1946 a series of uprisings are begun on the expectation of Allied help, but no such help is forthcoming. The resistance movements are brutally and methodically crushed by Nazi troops. Some surviving refugees straggle across the border to find shelter in the West carrying tales of atrocities.
In May of 1948, Germany troops begin firing on Allied planes patrolling the German border. An SS Squad attempts to assassinate former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The embargo placed on Nazi Germany comes to look threadbare as weapons are smuggled past Allied patrols by Turkish freighters and reports continue to come in that Hitler has rebuilt his atomic program. The revived League of Nations sends in inspectors to investigate the program but the inspectors are thwarted at every step, prevented from gaining access to key areas and then forced to leave as evidence mounts that Germany is simply moving around its weapons program and staying one step ahead of the inspectors.
Despite these events, nations friendly to Nazi Germany such as Spain, Argentina, Italy and Japan call for an end to the embargo on Germany. They point to the mass starvation that has resulted from Hitler diverting resources to his military and his construction projects as proof that the embargo is evil and must stop. Other countries such as France and Belgium that see potential profits in being able to do business with Nazi Germany again and being able to collect pre-war debts, despite themselves being formerly victimized by Nazi Germany, also join the call for the removal of the embargo.
The isolation of the American and British position on Nazi Germany becomes more evident when Stalin and Hitler sign a second treaty vowing to focus their efforts on resisting the Anglo-American alliance. This rapprochement places the US and British position which supports military action to bring Hitler into compliance with the obligations of the WW2 Armistice in the minority in the League of Nations.
Within the United States, Democrats fail to support Republican President Eisenhower's call for War on Germany in his 1953 inagural address, even though Democratic President Truman had presented much the same agenda. The Democratic party however has taken the position that such a war would boost Eisenhower's ratings and translate into electoral defeat for them. While most Democrats do not dare openly oppose War on Germany, they call for giving more time for the League of Nations inspectors to do their work and the need for more proof that Nazi Germany really has a nuclear program.
Amid the growing debate over Germany, the anti-war movement fueled by the reapporachment of the USSR and Nazi Germany unites left and right in opposition to War on Germany. Protesters chant 'Eisenhower is Worse than Hitler', 'No War for Ike's Imperialism' and 'Give Peace a Chance.' "At least Hitler was actually elected while Eisenhower wasn't" a major Hollywood movie star quips referencing Eisenhower's win in the electoral college. Prominent American and European intellectuals argue that the US has no right to criticize Nazi Germany for its nuclear program since the United States has more nuclear weapons than Nazi Germany does, unlike Nazi Germany has actually used them, that America only want war with Germany in order to gain more territory and that Eisenhower has been seized with war fever.
As President Eisenhower announces that the United States and a coalition of allies will be prepared to go into Nazi Germany, regardless of whether they receive approval from the League of Nations or not and that such approval or lack thereof will not pass judgement on the Allies but on the League of Nations itself; criticism comes from Europe indicting the US for its unilaterialism and military adventurism. A petition is circulated demanding that "the United States respect the sovereignty of the German people to choose their own leaders."
While no one can actually make an argument in defense of Hitler, the anti-war forces compensate for this by going on the attack against Eisenhower deriding him as a fool and a warmonger who hopes to personally profit from the war against Nazi Germany. Most anti-war arguments begin with "Yes I know Hitler is a bad man but that doesn't mean I have to support Eisenhower's war."
By August 1955 as war nears Hitler makes a desperate political ploy to play for time by allowing League of Nations inspectors back in while continuing the work on his weapons program. 108 inspectors prove to be no match for the entire SS and Wermacht's ability to conceal the weapons they've been sent to find. The inspections process threatens to drag on endlessly as the League of Nations bureaucracy sees a chance to emphasize their own importance. Nevertheless polls show that convinced by a massive newspaper, radio and television campaign carried on by left leaning media most of the public demands League of Nations approval before any military action is carried out. Regardless of the fact that such approval is inconceivable as nations friendly to Hitler including Italy and Argentina and those who have something to gain financially including France and Belgium have veto power over any such resolution.
Meanwhile Hitler sits in his bunker commanding a vast army and secret police force that stretches from the French border to deep inside Eastern Europe its earth filled with the millions of corpses of his victims and the cries of those still to come and laughs at the inability of the West to resist him and the way that much of the West has even come to champion his cause...as he prepares for war. Edmund Burke had once said that, “All that is required for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Both in this reality and in our own, his words were more prophetic than he knew.
As the war on the Pacific and European fronts grows more intense costing hundreds of thousands of American lives and faced with the prospect of being forced to fight a surging Soviet army should an occupation of Nazi Germany take place; Allied leaders ponder the offer of a negotiated armistice with Nazi Germany.
On December 12, 1943, representatives of Great Britain, France the United States and Germany sign an armistice treaty under which all German troops are to leave any captured territory on the Western front and withdraw to the French border, cease developing any nuclear technologies and destroy their reserves of chemical weapons while allowing inspectors to monitor compliance.
This accord is initially controversial, especially to those who argue that within the territory Nazi Germany still controls, Hitler is carrying out ethnic cleansing of minorities and torturing and executing political opponents. But supporters of the accord point out that Nazi Germany is not the only country in the world that massacres ethnic minorities and that the Allies could not possibly intervene in every country that does. Should those Hitler is massacring really want their freedom, they need to rise up and overthrow him.
Furthermore they argue that a conquest of Nazi Germany would be costly and incite enmity of the United States among Germans and Aryans around the world which would in the long run only lead to more racial intolerance and ethnic cleansing around the world as outrage over the deaths of Germans and war on Germany would lead to increased Neo-Nazi recruitment. It would also destabilize the region by allowing the USSR to make serious gains in Eastern Europe and in the vacuum created by the fall of Hitler, possibly even within Germany and Western Europe itself.
The policy of containing Hitler however begins to show serious flaws very soon after. In the strip of Eastern European territories that Germany still controls come reports of growing massacres and death camps. The Allies pledge their support to those in Eastern Europe and those Germans within Germany itself prepared to rise against Hitler. On June 24 1946 a series of uprisings are begun on the expectation of Allied help, but no such help is forthcoming. The resistance movements are brutally and methodically crushed by Nazi troops. Some surviving refugees straggle across the border to find shelter in the West carrying tales of atrocities.
In May of 1948, Germany troops begin firing on Allied planes patrolling the German border. An SS Squad attempts to assassinate former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The embargo placed on Nazi Germany comes to look threadbare as weapons are smuggled past Allied patrols by Turkish freighters and reports continue to come in that Hitler has rebuilt his atomic program. The revived League of Nations sends in inspectors to investigate the program but the inspectors are thwarted at every step, prevented from gaining access to key areas and then forced to leave as evidence mounts that Germany is simply moving around its weapons program and staying one step ahead of the inspectors.
Despite these events, nations friendly to Nazi Germany such as Spain, Argentina, Italy and Japan call for an end to the embargo on Germany. They point to the mass starvation that has resulted from Hitler diverting resources to his military and his construction projects as proof that the embargo is evil and must stop. Other countries such as France and Belgium that see potential profits in being able to do business with Nazi Germany again and being able to collect pre-war debts, despite themselves being formerly victimized by Nazi Germany, also join the call for the removal of the embargo.
The isolation of the American and British position on Nazi Germany becomes more evident when Stalin and Hitler sign a second treaty vowing to focus their efforts on resisting the Anglo-American alliance. This rapprochement places the US and British position which supports military action to bring Hitler into compliance with the obligations of the WW2 Armistice in the minority in the League of Nations.
Within the United States, Democrats fail to support Republican President Eisenhower's call for War on Germany in his 1953 inagural address, even though Democratic President Truman had presented much the same agenda. The Democratic party however has taken the position that such a war would boost Eisenhower's ratings and translate into electoral defeat for them. While most Democrats do not dare openly oppose War on Germany, they call for giving more time for the League of Nations inspectors to do their work and the need for more proof that Nazi Germany really has a nuclear program.
Amid the growing debate over Germany, the anti-war movement fueled by the reapporachment of the USSR and Nazi Germany unites left and right in opposition to War on Germany. Protesters chant 'Eisenhower is Worse than Hitler', 'No War for Ike's Imperialism' and 'Give Peace a Chance.' "At least Hitler was actually elected while Eisenhower wasn't" a major Hollywood movie star quips referencing Eisenhower's win in the electoral college. Prominent American and European intellectuals argue that the US has no right to criticize Nazi Germany for its nuclear program since the United States has more nuclear weapons than Nazi Germany does, unlike Nazi Germany has actually used them, that America only want war with Germany in order to gain more territory and that Eisenhower has been seized with war fever.
As President Eisenhower announces that the United States and a coalition of allies will be prepared to go into Nazi Germany, regardless of whether they receive approval from the League of Nations or not and that such approval or lack thereof will not pass judgement on the Allies but on the League of Nations itself; criticism comes from Europe indicting the US for its unilaterialism and military adventurism. A petition is circulated demanding that "the United States respect the sovereignty of the German people to choose their own leaders."
While no one can actually make an argument in defense of Hitler, the anti-war forces compensate for this by going on the attack against Eisenhower deriding him as a fool and a warmonger who hopes to personally profit from the war against Nazi Germany. Most anti-war arguments begin with "Yes I know Hitler is a bad man but that doesn't mean I have to support Eisenhower's war."
By August 1955 as war nears Hitler makes a desperate political ploy to play for time by allowing League of Nations inspectors back in while continuing the work on his weapons program. 108 inspectors prove to be no match for the entire SS and Wermacht's ability to conceal the weapons they've been sent to find. The inspections process threatens to drag on endlessly as the League of Nations bureaucracy sees a chance to emphasize their own importance. Nevertheless polls show that convinced by a massive newspaper, radio and television campaign carried on by left leaning media most of the public demands League of Nations approval before any military action is carried out. Regardless of the fact that such approval is inconceivable as nations friendly to Hitler including Italy and Argentina and those who have something to gain financially including France and Belgium have veto power over any such resolution.
Meanwhile Hitler sits in his bunker commanding a vast army and secret police force that stretches from the French border to deep inside Eastern Europe its earth filled with the millions of corpses of his victims and the cries of those still to come and laughs at the inability of the West to resist him and the way that much of the West has even come to champion his cause...as he prepares for war. Edmund Burke had once said that, “All that is required for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Both in this reality and in our own, his words were more prophetic than he knew.
It reminds me that at the outset of WWII many in the US (including Lindbergh and Joe Kennedy) opposed the conflict with Germany and even the N.Y. Times thought the Nazi regime was one of the shining hopes of mankind.
I just started reading Churchill's history of WWII and I found this quote interesting:
"It is my purpose, as one who lived and acted in these days to show how easily the tragedy of the Second World War could have been prevented; how the malice of the wicked was reinforced by the weakness of the virtuos; how the structure and habits of democratic States unless they are welded into larger organisms, lack those elements of persistence and conviction which can alone give security to humble masses; how, even to matters of self-preservation, no policy is pursued even ten or fifteen years at a time. We shall see how the counsels of prudence and restraint may become the prime agents of mortal danger; how the middle course adopted from desires for safety lead direct to the bull's-eye of disaster. We shall see how absolute is the need of a braod path of international action pursued by many States in common across the years, irrespective of the ebb and flow of national policies.
Those who do not learn history's lessons are doomed to repeat them. I only hope that our children and grandchildren can look back and say in the words of Mr. Churchill "this was their finest hour."
Having read The New Dealers' War by Thomas Flemming (a Truman Democrat), I learned that everything supports the conclusion that FDR left us the world he was fighting for--a world that was safe for the Soviet Union. FDR recognized the USSR in 1933, and "throughout the summer of 1941" FDR had the US Navy harassing the German U-boats. Churchill of course could have nothing to complain of over that, but in fact the summer starts on June 22, give or take a day, and that is the very day in 1941 when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. Not only so, but the US aggressively supported the Soviet government with practically everything they asked for--to include some uranium--everything except for B29s.
And the US still harbored anti-British sentiments left over from the War of 1812; FDR wanted to see the end of the British Empire.
In that context, if given the counterfactual of a Reaganite US government during WWII, proper US policy would IMHO have been not "Unconditional Surrender" but "serious regime change." Roosevelt's policy was popular, superficially sensible in response to the failure of the WWI Armistace, but vitally helpful to Hitler politically. A tripolar world of Axis, Western Allies, and USSR would have been no worse than the mess FDR created at such cost.
Give or take the resulting effects on the nuclear race . . .
My point relates to FDR personally. Given that we-the-people were 80% opposed to entry into WWII before Pearl Harbor, and that Neville Chamberlain's "peace in our time" was popular in Britain at the time, it actually can be understood that FDR had no way of getting the country to fight Hitler before Pearl Harbor.But the reason my lifetime was so fouled up by the Cold War is basically that FDR loved the idea of socialism enough to bend practically everything to protect the Soviet Union from Germany. Much as we think of Churchill and FDR as being buddy-buddy, in fact FDR (and the US Navy which he once basically headed before his presidency) had anti-British Empire sentiments (which helps to explain why we were sufficiently slow to pick up British Navy tactics that we lost almost 400 coastal merchantmen to U-boats by June 1942).
FDR was unhappy over the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact; once it was broken by Hitler's invasion FDR began trying to provoke the U-boats into attacking our Navy. It wouldn't surprise me to learn, tho I don't know, that the US diplomatic posture vs. Japan stiffened on the very day Hitler invaded the USSR.
FDR was unhappy over the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact; once it was broken by Hitler's invasion FDR began trying to provoke the U-boats into attacking our Navy. It wouldn't surprise me to learn, tho I don't know, that the US diplomatic posture vs. Japan stiffened on the very day Hitler invaded the USSR.
The appropriate timing would have been the sinking of the USS Panay.
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