raystwo@webtv.net (Raymond Speer) wrote:
>In retrospect, the unconditional surrender declaration has been
>criticized . As an example, Basil Liddell Hart in his _History of the
>Second World War_ ( Putnam, 1970 ) p. 712-713..."
>
>Do you agree or disagree with Liddell Hart?
>
>If you think that proposing peace terms is a good idea, how would you
>promulgate those terms? Issue a press release like Wilson's Four
>Points?
Allied policy proclamations amounted to a sort of
Four Points. But this was undermined by all the
talk of permanent solutions to the German problem,
like destroying all German industry or worse.
>Send OSS or MI6 agents to Switzerland to leak the terms to
>German dissidents? Or would you do something else?
OT1H, as has been pointed out, the Army-conservative
opposition had seriously exaggerated ideas of what
Germany could get in a peace settlement.
OTOH,"unconditional surrender", combined with rabid
anti-Germanism in the mass media, almost certainly
discouraged some Germans from supporting the anti-
Nazi faction. When ideas like the Morgenthau Plan
were being widely discussed, "unconditional
surrender" looked a bit too much like national
suicide. Or, to put it another way, it gave the
impression that surrender was no use - one might
as well fight it out.
My personal feeling is that the Allies should have
made some privateurances that German surrender
would not be followed by a Carthaginian peace. These
assurances should be as vague as possible and exclude
any sort of amnesty for war crimes. No divisions of
Germany, no mass execution of military officers.
But - the German opposition, with their delusions about
what Germany could get, and desperate for a way out of
the war, would seize on theseurances, and would be
significantly encouraged. It's possible - though not
certain, of course - that some of those who OTL sat
on the fence, neither supporting nor opposing the anti-
Hitler conspiracy would support it, and that this extra
support would enable one of the many anti-Hitler plots
of 1943-44 to succeed.
And IMHO, once Hitler was dead, the Third Reich would
unravel and surrender would come within months.
--
| He had a shorter, more scraggly, and even less |
| flattering beard than Yassir Arafat, and Escalante |
| never conceived that such a thing was possible. |
| -- William Goldman, _Heat_ | |
