Oddbean

A taboo perspective on WWII I learned since living in Germany: If anyone but Churchill became PM in May 1940, there would have been peace by July. The death toll from the whole war in Europe would be <200k. The only land contested would be what was lost in WWI. There was no Holocaust yet, so that was no reason to continue. Maybe there never would have. All we know is that continuing the war famously didn't stop it and probably made it worse. In hindsight, we can worry about a future invasion of the USSR and whatnot. But that still doesn't explain or excuse the decision to keep fighting in 1940. Do the Germans have a point? 🤔

I like to collect and share these perspectives because I strongly believe that if we don't nuance our understanding of WWII, actual Nazis will do it for us. That's a power we can't afford to surrender.

I just leave this here for you to reconsider your ridiculous assumption of an alternate timeline in Europe after 1940... https://image.nostr.build/8c23ca470e06fcccdc0ebfe95af4dd40ac67a88684f43f394dc6ab019cfe7123.jpg

Well, this is what we know actually happened after the decision to fight on. So that's our baseline. I agree it was a horrible outcome, hence the scepticism of the decision. It's hard to imagine any alternative outcome as bad as that one actually, apart from the satisfaction of beating Hitler at the end.

Yeah. Right... Would have been even worse if England kept appeasing and USA stayed neutral. Racial purity (which resulted in ethnic cleansing) and expansion policy ("Lebensraum") were cornerstones of Nazism and planned long before WW2. I mean Dachau KZ was already operational in May 1933. Therefore war was inevitable for all neighbors and by association / alliance for England and France. Hitler then declared war on the Soviet Union in 1941 breaking the supposedly peaceful Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. And then declared on USA. I think you need a history lesson.