Unconditional Surender

[Stephen]

Plenty of PODs in this (http://read-all-about-it.org/archive_english/world_war2/UnconditionalSurrender.html) article.

[Franz Josef II]

Kill off or incapacitate FDR before the declaration of unconditional surrender: what happens?

[Chris Oakley]

Plenty of PODs in this (http://read-all-about-it.org/archive_english/world_war2/UnconditionalSurrender.html) article.

Not to mention a raging dose of historical revisionism and paranoia...Did you get a load of that "they were bent on destroying Germany in any case" line? Unbelievable. :eek: :(

[Geon]

While I found the article interesting I have several issues with the ideas presented.

First, and foremost what kind of conditions would have been agreeable to both Germany and Japan to end the fighting? The author seems to forget that the same policy of "no surrender" was decided upon for both Germany and Japan at Casablanca.




Given what Europe and Asia had been through leading up to the Casablanca Conference here are some points which I believe the article does not consider.
The National Socialist party had to go. The author of the above mentioned article believes this too. There could be no permanent peace while the Nazis held on to power. Likewise the Japanese miltarists would also have to step down from power. Neither one showed any sign or desire to do so. The miltarists/Nazis were firmly entrenched and would have to be dislodged from power somehow.
All occupied territories would have to be returned in both Europe and Asia. There were so many sticking points here it wasn't funny. Does Germany get to keep Austria and Czechoslovokia since they were annexed before the war broke out? Also, what about the Rhineland? I could also see the Japanese bringing up a similar issue with Manchukuo, since Korea and Manchuria were theirs prior to the war should they be allowed to keep them?
Demobilization--in OTL Japan insisted that one of the conditions for ending the Pacific War must be that it would be allowed to demobilize its own army and navy. Similarly with a hungry Russian wolf at the back door in 1943 I don't see the Germans being willing to accept another crippling Versailes style treaty to demoblize their forces unless they got iron clad guarantees against the Soviets. These were guarantees no sane diplomat in the West was about to make.
Japan had virtually stirred up a hornet's nest by its attack on Pearl Harbor. There was no way the American people were going to accept anything short of final victory against Japan, especially after the news of how the Japanese treated prisoners of war started filtering back to the U.S. Any poltician who suggested a conditional peace with Japan would have been taking his political life in his hands.
The Holocaust was now entering its most deadly stages in Germany. Even assuming the Nazis were forced to step down how would the world react once the true horror of what was occuring in the occupied lands was discovered?
These are just some of the reasons I believe the "no surrender" policy at Casablanca was the only one that made sense.

Geon

[The Kiat]

Unconditional surrender only if the Nazis are still in power. If the army pulled off a coup, I'd be willing to grant them a couple of conditions if it would end the war sooner.

[jack_donaghy_is_the_shado]

http://www.barnesreview.org/

As a student of history, I find this source, to say the least, a favorite for Pat Buchanan and his minions= useless

[Franz Josef II]

I will repeat my comment/question: kill off or incapacitate FDR before the declaration of unconditional surrender. Would Britain be able to influence America's goals for Europe? I doubt Churchill wanted the OTL situation. Does anyone know what the British would have/might have accepted for an honorable surrender (and perhaps beyond the pale of ASB, an honorable peace)?

[Typo]

It depends on who takes over from FDR, if it's Wallace, he's probably gonna want the same as FDR, if its Truman, same thing.

The whole idea of "honorable peace" is IMO pretty flawed in any situation.

[I Blame Communism]

Oh, yay, more Roosevelt bashing!

Let me and my friend :rolleyes: see whether it's more coherent and reasoned than other borderline Nazi apologia:

FDR is the devil because he condescended to have diplomatic relations with the Soviet government at a time when the world was destabilised by fascist aggression threatening American interests. :rolleyes:

The Holodomor was a Ukrainian genocide. Pull the other one. :rolleyes:

I like how he goes on about "Europe's debt of blood and treasure" and "bitter 3rd Army veterans" and never once do we spare a thought for the Soviets and Chinese who know what national devestation really means. :rolleyes:

"Biblical wisdom". :rolleyes:

Churchill turned down an "honourable peace". :rolleyes: I was waiting for that one. When these pieces are Anglophobic, it makes me feel that my country is valued too.

Bomber Harris is Satan. :rolleyes: *hums Land of Hope and Glory*

"Figures loyal to Moscow high up in the British and American governments"? Why no love for Henry Wallace, Korean War supporter? Why? :(

(:rolleyes:)

"England". :rolleyes: *hums Highland Cathedral*

Stauffenberg, "handsome, highly-decorated nobleman" and, no doubt, chivalrous Teutonic Knight. :rolleyes: *hums Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky*

When Patton and Montgomery propose risky and ambitious schemes that happen to make Patton and Montgomery look like war-winners, you should definitely accept their suggestions without any pinch of salt. :rolleyes:

German officers obviously have no interest in anything but the gospel truth about the war. :rolleyes:

Winston Churchill, dirty financier and war-profiteer (possibly Jewish?). :rolleyes:

Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, freedom from fear: these are not an eloquent distillation of human rights, they are socialism, and socialism is evil. :rolleyes:

Africa: used to be British but gone to the dogs now. :rolleyes:

What, in summary, is your opinion of this article, my dear :rolleyes:?

:rolleyes:: We will never parley, we will never negotiate with Hitler and his gang!

Expressed eloquently in the extreme, old boy.

:rolleyes:: Why thankyou.

Now, to be less facetious: this article goes on and on and on about honour. Here is a simple question: where is the honour in deliberately starving defenceless old men and women and children to death? Where is the honour is refusing to give food and shelter to prisoners of war? Where is the honour in shooting men who have surrendered out of hand? Where is the honour in locking unarmed people in barns and burning them to the ground?

The ravings of Nazi apologists about "honourable peace" all have as their unmentioed subtext the continuation of German occupation of the USSR, Poland, and Yugoslavia. Are we really to believe that the men who had authorised the extermination of prisoners by starvation and the burning of villages as standard operating prodecure would instantly have ended these measures - even though thanks to Nazi aggression there was not enough food to go around anyway, and thanks to Nazi attempted genocide any lull in the anti-Partisan effort meant turning the occupied countryside over to the Soviets?

If these people really drew any distinction between the Soviet peoples and their leaders, they would realise that the people of occupied eastern Europe needed urgently to be liberated from the most evil regime in world history, and that this was a far more humanitarian goal than saving eastern Germans from a tyranny that was much lighter than the Nazist one, or rescusing Africans from their own national independence.

[Van555]

Yeah this is just bad

for shame Paleoconservatives!

[MerryPrankster]

"Figures loyal to Moscow high up in the British and American governments"? Why no love for Henry Wallace, Korean War supporter? Why? :(

(:rolleyes:)


Because in 1944-45 and afterward, he was a "useful idiot."

Two of the people he wanted in his Cabinet (one was the Secretary of the Treasury and I can't remember the other) turned out to be Soviet agents.

You can't compare his pro-Korean War views, which probably came after he turned against the USSR, with his views in 1944-45.

[MerryPrankster]

Now, to be less facetious: this article goes on and on and on about honour. Here is a simple question: where is the honour in deliberately starving defenceless old men and women and children to death? Where is the honour is refusing to give food and shelter to prisoners of war? Where is the honour in shooting men who have surrendered out of hand? Where is the honour in locking unarmed people in barns and burning them to the ground?

The ravings of Nazi apologists about "honourable peace" all have as their unmentioed subtext the continuation of German occupation of the USSR, Poland, and Yugoslavia. Are we really to believe that the men who had authorised the extermination of prisoners by starvation and the burning of villages as standard operating prodecure would instantly have ended these measures - even though thanks to Nazi aggression there was not enough food to go around anyway, and thanks to Nazi attempted genocide any lull in the anti-Partisan effort meant turning the occupied countryside over to the Soviets?

If these people really drew any distinction between the Soviet peoples and their leaders, they would realise that the people of occupied eastern Europe needed urgently to be liberated from the most evil regime in world history, and that this was a far more humanitarian goal than saving eastern Germans from a tyranny that was much lighter than the Nazist one, or rescusing Africans from their own national independence.


If something like Operation Valkyrie had succeeded, many of the worst war criminals would be dead or locked up somewhere. Perhaps they could be useful bargaining chips.

And I could turn around and use the "drew any distinction" argument to say that those who recognize a distinction between the Nazi hard-cores and the ordinary Germans would be willing to stop at the borders of German-speaking territory once the non-Germans who had been victimized by the Nazis had all been liberated.

(It wouldn't just be Americans and Britons dying in a "to the death" battle, but a lot of Russians too. How many Russians would still be alive with no Battle of Berlin? IIRC 400,000.)

[I Blame Communism]

http://www.barnesreview.org/

As a student of history, I find this source, to say the least, a favorite for Pat Buchanan and his minions= useless

What a gem.

"Are the Khazars Neanderthals?" "Could the South have won the Civil War?" "Indo-Aryan end-time beliefs." "Red Man versus White Man: the 7th great race war." "Dishonest Abe versus our founding father." "Arminius: the liberator of Europe." "Brits planned genocide of the Irish - in 1972!" "Russia and the Jews." And worst of all... "Of Scottish blood: American freedom!"

It's bad enough being trapped in bizarro-Goebbels world, they could at least admit that I'm a Paddie-killing finance capitalist war profiteer controlled by international Jewry. But no, I'm apparently of pure Aryan blood. I eat freedom for breakfast every day after tracking it across the moorland and glen for miles like a manly mountain man.

Phooie. :mad:

[MerryPrankster]

And if you want to call people who disagree with you on this matter "Nazi apologists," how about I interpret your comments about being a philo-Commie Russophile traitor literally instead of ironically (which is how you intended them, I think)?

If you want to call names, be prepared to be on the receiving end.

[I Blame Communism]

Because in 1944-45 and afterward, he was a "useful idiot."

Two of the people he wanted in his Cabinet (one was the Secretary of the Treasury and I can't remember the other) turned out to be Soviet agents.

And they were not serving in the cabinet during the war, to the best of my knowledge.

You can't compare his pro-Korean War views, which probably came after he turned against the USSR, with his views in 1944-45.

Susupiciously, this came just about exactly when the Soviets stopped liberating people from genocidal regimes and started to aid and abbet invasions of other countries and general aggressive grandstanding.

It's almost as if Wallace based his foreign policy on facts and principles rather than Russophobic suspicion...

And if you want to call people who disagree with you on this matter "Nazi apologists," how about I interpret your comments about being a philo-Commie Russophile traitor literally instead of ironically (which is how you intended them, I think)?

If you want to call names, be prepared to be on the receiving end.

I am. Note my user title. :p

(Of course, I don't consider my title of "Russophile" an insult. I where it with pride, like my other titles such as "Germanophile" and "Hibernophile".)

Nonetheless, I only accused the man in the article and the editorial staff of the Barnes Review of being (borderline) Nazi apologists, and those are claims I'll stick by.

If something like Operation Valkyrie had succeeded, many of the worst war criminals would be dead or locked up somewhere. Perhaps they could be useful bargaining chips.

And that would bring food to the starving and freedom to the occupied? The fact was, while there were Germans in Poland, Yugoslvia, and the USSR, the killing and dying would carry on.

I'd have no moral objection to a conditional surrender in which the only condition was "the German people won't be exterminated" or "we will undertake to feed the German people" or anything else that wasn't a humanitarian disaster. But the article pretty obviously wants the Germans to stay in stolen land. And would the generals really kill off Hitler if they knew it would mean instantly submitting to joint occupation? I doubt it. If their objectives were genuinely humanitarian, saving german boys from the jaws of a hopeless struggle, they could have pulled a putsch and then surrendered unconditionally.

And I could turn around and use the "drew any distinction" argument to say that those who recognize a distinction between the Nazi hard-cores and the ordinary Germans would be willing to stop at the borders of German-speaking territory once the non-Germans who had been victimized by the Nazis had all been liberated.

And leave the Nazis in power? How does that make sense?

The German peiople, too, were saved from a regime that had ceased to feed them adequately and started to shoot them at random.

(It wouldn't just be Americans and Britons dying in a "to the death" battle, but a lot of Russians too. How many Russians would still be alive with no Battle of Berlin? IIRC 400,000.)

Plenty. As I said, if it was a matter of allowing a conditional surrender which involved the instant end of hostilities on all fronts, I'm for it. And I don't think it ever was. It's certainly not what the OP seems to have been thinking.

[MerryPrankster]

What's wrong with praising Arminius? The Roman Empire was an evil slaving regime that got downright totalitarian toward the end.

The rest of that stuff comes off as a bit, well, insane. Irish Genocide in 1972?

[MerryPrankster]

And they were not serving in the cabinet during the war, to the best of my knowledge.

It's almost as if Wallace based his foreign policy on facts and principles rather than Russophobic suspicion...

1. Irrelevant. If Wallace had been VP when Roosevelt died, there would be Soviet spies in the Cabinet.

Luckily, FDR replaced him with Truman, whom I rather like even if he was a Democrat.

And the Venona Cables revealed there was a lot more Soviet espionage going on than just two might-have-beens.

2. Perhaps, or perhaps the scales had fallen from his eyes about "Uncle Joe."

[MerryPrankster]

Nonetheless, I only accused the man in the article and the editorial staff of the Barnes Review of being (borderline) Nazi apologists, and those are claims I'll stick by.

Fine. Considering some of the other stuff there, they're probably a bit nutty to start with.

Thing is, wouldn't you be proud of the idea that American freedoms owe a lot to the Scots, being a Scot yourself?

After all, the Scots-Irish played a big part in the American Revolution.

[I Blame Communism]

What's wrong with praising Arminius? The Roman Empire was an evil slaving regime that got downright totalitarian toward the end.

The rest of that stuff comes off as a bit, well, insane. Irish Genocide in 1972?

In context with the rest of that stuff (Jews aren't human; they control the Russians; the Brits are evil (but the Celts are good!); the South had a good deal going on, really; history is a series of race wars; Oriental mysticism fetishism), though, it's familiar to anyone who's studied Nazist tropes.

I've got nothing against Arminius. Or Scotland. But I'm bemused that a publication regurgitating Nazi mythology is so fond of my country. For all our virtues and vices, the real Scotland that I live in isn't a Nazi kind of place at all. I struggle to imagine a dour, fatalistic, Presbyterian Nazi, for instance; so I was having a little joke.

1. Irrelevant. If Wallace had been VP when Roosevelt died, there would be Soviet spies in the Cabinet.

Luckily, FDR replaced him with Truman, whom I rather like even if he was a Democrat.

And the Venona Cables revealed there was a lot more Soviet espionage going on than just two might-have-beens.

Certainly: the Soviets were trying to subvert foreign governments and advance their own interests. And, as I always say about the Cold War, both sides did it (the WAllies, of course, ended up assisting OUN). That doesn't reflect on Roosevelt or his foreign policy in any meaningful way, which is what the article was driving at, as far as I can tell.

2. Perhaps, or perhaps the scales had fallen from his eyes about "Uncle Joe."

Isn't that what I said?

[Dr. Strangelove]

What's wrong with praising Arminius? The Roman Empire was an evil slaving regime that got downright totalitarian toward the end.

The rest of that stuff comes off as a bit, well, insane. Irish Genocide in 1972?

I am fairly sure that people who suggest jews are neanderthals, (http://www.barnesreview.info/are-the-khazars-neanderthals-mayjune-p-24.html?cPath=22_52) claim Vidkun Quisling was unfairly demonized for just being a nordic patriot, (http://www.barnesreview.info/the-slaying-of-a-viking-septoct-p-318.html?cPath=22_59)and have an entire section of their site called "Holocaust revisionism" may not be nazis, but they indeed sound like them.

Btw, this site is pure gold. You made my day, Jack.

[MerryPrankster]

In context with the rest of that stuff (Jews aren't human; they control the Russians; the Brits are evil (but the Celts are good!); the South had a good deal going on, really; history is a series of race wars; Oriental mysticism fetishes), though, it's familiar to anyone who's studied Nazist tropes.

I've got nothing against Arminius. Or Scotland.

So the site is some kind of Celtic equivalent to the Nazis, with the Celts as the Master Race?

Now I want to post an AH Challenge...

[Zajir]

So the site is some kind of Celtic equivalent to the Nazis, with the Celts as the Master Race?

Now I want to post an AH Challenge...

No they are just American Neo-Nazis who hate the british.

From SPLC (http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/www.splcenter.org/get...files/.../barnes-review)

Founded:
1994


Location:
Washington, D.C.



Ideology:
White Nationalist (http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/ideology/white-nationalist)


Founded by Willis Carto in 1994, The Barnes Review (TBR) is one of the most virulent anti-Semitic organizations around. Its flagship journal, The Barnes Review, and its website, Barnesreview.org, are dedicated to historical revisionism and Holocaust denial. The organization is also a moneymaking enterprise. Besides journal subscriptions, its TBR Book Club and online bookstore promote and sell a wide range of extremist books and publications. The Barnes Review also hosts nearly annual conferences that attract an international crowd of antigovernment extremists, anti-Semites, white supremacists, and racist conspiracy theorists.
In Its Own Words
"Without a means of confronting the onrushing third world, white civilization is doomed. It can do nothing else but deteriorate to a third world level with all that implies: the final triumph of liberalism; political correctness; a garbage culture; poverty; the extermination of the middle class and then Marxism. It means Jewish political and cultural domination, including a political tyranny comparable to Stalinism."
— Willis Carto, "Is Christianity Relevant?" Barnesreview.org
"[The Barnes Review] aims to tell you the truth — the whole truth about history — things you need to know to figure out how things got so screwed up — and why. It's a good investment in your family's future. No other history publication in America can truthfully say that. And that's the truth."
— Willis Carto, "About The Barnes Review," Barnesreview.org
"Hitler: Neglected Nobel Peace Prize Winner?"
— Headline for cover story, The Barnes Review, July/August 2004 issue
Background
Named after Harry Elmer Barnes, a prominent 20th-century anti-Semite and Holocaust denier, The Barnes Review was created by Willis Carto, who also founded the extreme right-wing Liberty Lobby and the Institute for Historical Review (http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/groups/institute-for-historical-review) (IHR), another Holocaust denial organization. Carto created The Barnes Review as a rival to IHR after he was forced out by the IHR's leadership in 1993 for financial mismanagement.
Claiming that its mission is to "tell the whole about history," TBR really practices an extremist form of revisionist history that includes defending the Nazi regime, denying the Holocaust, discounting the evils of slavery, and promoting white nationalism. The Barnes Review magazine has published articles entitled "Adolf Hitler — An Overlooked Candidate for the Nobel Prize?", "Treblinka Was No Death Camp", "Is There a Negro Race?", "‘Reconquista': The Mexican Plan to Take the Southwest", and "David Duke: An Awakening." The Barnes Review, like most of the radical-right institutions started by Willis Carto over the decades, also gives voice to any number of wild conspiracy theories. TBR's website puts it like this to its readers: "Many intelligent Americans still believe Pearl Harbor was a ‘surprise attack.' It was not. ... Many still believe Columbus (or Leif Ericsson) was first to America. He was not. ... Or what about proof that there was federal foreknowledge and complicity in the OKC bombing? There was. We can't even begin to discuss here the many questions that have never been answered about 9-11. The list of historical lies and distortions goes on and on and on. . ."
Besides serving Carto's ideological and propaganda purposes, much of this "historical" work also serves to raise money. Annual subscriptions to the bimonthly journal are $46. Recommended works by the TBR Book Club, including Cultural Insurrections: Essays on Western Civilization, Jewish Influence & Anti-Semitism and March of Titans: A History of the White Race, can be purchased at TBR's online bookstore. Advertising space is for sale. There is even a "TBR Distributor Program" that will pay people for recruiting new subscribers to the TBR journal. The ad does its best to entice potential collaborators: "But before you say you can't afford it or it's too much work, look how easy — and how profitable — we've made it."
The Barnes Review's nearly annual conferences also provide an opportunity to market TBR's materials and ideology — and are nonsectarian in regards to all manner of extremism. In past years, paying attendees could listen to lectures by longtime anti-Semite Eustace Mullins, antigovernment conspiracy-monger (and former FBI official) Ted Gunderson, and neo-Nazi Alex Hassinger, who runs Nordwave, a Florida group that calls itself "The Voice of National Socialism." Hutton Gibson, an anti-Semitic "radical traditionalist Catholic" and the father of actor Mel Gibson's, was extremely popular during the 2003 conference.
Even some more supposedly mainstream individuals have participated in what is really a Willis Carto show. William Lind of the Free Congress Foundation, a far-right outfit headed by Paul Weyrich (one of the founders of the Moral Majority), gave a speech at the 2002 conference. Although he told his audience that his Free Congress Foundation was "not among those who question whether the Holocaust occurred," he went on to lay blame for "political correctness" and other evils on so-called "cultural Marxists," who turned out to be the same folks Carto blames for America's ills. "These guys," Lind explained, "were all Jewish."
There is also an international presence at many of these conferences. For example, Arthur Kemp, a notorious South African white supremacist tied to the U.S. neo-Nazi group National Alliance (http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/groups/national-alliance) who was once accused of helping plan a major terrorist assassination in his home country, spoke in 2006.
More recently, The Barnes Review has begun promoting Christian Identity (http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/ideology/christian-identity), a radical theology that claims that Jews are the literal descendants of Satan, on its website and in its journal. The article "Christian Identity: American's Best Hope?" appeared in the January/February 2008 issue of The Barnes Review, and Carto personally posted to its website the article, "Is Christianity Relevant?" The article outlined Carto's belief that "the Identity message holds out the hope for survival — not only spiritual and cultural survival — but racial survival."

[Eurofed]

There is no question that the Nazi genocidal grip on Eastern Europe had to go. However, the point was not to let Hitler do what he wanted to Ukrainians. It was to do the best to topple him in a way that gives Stalin as little gains as possible, and does as little damage to Europe as possible (including Germany, which was and is an indispensable part of an healthy Europe, as America swiftly noticed after the war) .

FDR's policies, tainted by an unhealthy mix of willfully oblivious pro-Stalinist apologism and Germanophobic revenge-minded bloodthirstiness, were obviously not up to this delicate geopolitic challenge.

An American foreign policy and grand strategy for WWII Europe was required that

A) would push the borders of the area militarly and politically controlled by the Western Allies as eastward as possible, would gradually shut off Land-Lease as the Red Army got close to and beyond prewar Soviet borders, and would negotiate spheres of influence with Stalin on the basis of facts on the ground, without gifting the USSR with any inch of European soil that the Red Army had not conquered on its own and the WA armies could not ever realistically reach on its own first. In 1944-45, had the Americans been willing to go this way, a much larger swath of Europe could have been kept free of Soviet domination: certainly OTL East Germany, Czechia, and Austria, if the Valkyrie gamble had worked, even western Poland, the German Eastern territories (spared the ethnic cleansings), and western Hungary.

It did fit the best interests of the rest of the world to help the Soviets kick the Nazis out of their land, it did not to aid and abet the expansion of a regime only slighly less murderous and destructive than Nazism.

B) It lost nothing, and had the potential to gain much, for the Western Allies to kick "unconditional surrender" in the dustbin where it belonged, and give all feasible support to the German opposition by offering them guarantees for a humane, honorable peace: territorial integrity and national unity in pre-Munich borders in exchange for surrender to the WAllies. To the degree that US had any sense, it only was as a tool to occupy Germany and ensure that the roots of Nazism were pulled out by an adequate amount of Denazification, demilitarization, and re-education to democracy. Such terms would have guaranteed a peaceful, civil, democratic Germany just as well as OTL. Japan got a conditional surrender in all but name, with just this kind of guarantees, so giving them to a post-Nazi Germany would have met no political difficulty. If the German opposition had failed to topple Hitler, no loss for the Allies, they would have pressed on as A), if they had succeeded, a great deal of casualties and destruction would have been avoided, among soldiers, civilians, and Holocaust victims.

The last point need to be stressed: if the Nazi regime had been overthrown from within, in 1943-44, a great deal of its OTL victims would have been spared.

Of course, any attempt to question the wisdom of US and FDR's late WWII policies tends to draw apologists out of the woodwork, ready to tar and feather as cryptoNazi everyone who dares question St. Roosevelt. :rolleyes: But the hard truth is that a much better post-WWII world would have ensued if FDR had gotten his fatal stroke in 1940, and left the historic task of destroying Nazism to a President that was not a Germanophobic Commie-lover.

[Typo]

. Japan got a conditional surrender in all but name, with just this kind of guaranteesYeah, and that's why Japan as a nation is in denial about what it did in WWII.The last point need to be stressed: if the Nazi regime had been overthrown from within, in 1943-44, a great deal of its OTL victims would have been spared.
Valkyrie showed that the chances of that is virtually nil

[MerryPrankster]

Yeah, and that's why Japan as a nation is in denial about what it did in WWII.

The Japanese were militarily occupied for years after the A-bombs and still have US bases on their soil.

If there was a problem, it wasn't the lack of an invasion, it was the lack of "de-Imperialization."

(And there was plenty of that OTL--the Americans forced the Emperor to publically deny his deity.)

And I don't think a proper Japanese attitude toward the Empire's war crimes is worth the huge numbers of American and British dead that an invasion would bring.

[MerryPrankster]

Valkyrie showed that the chances of that is virtually nil

There are possibilities for PODs within the OTL sequence of events that showed it could have worked:

1. The bomb being moved after V.S. left but before it blew up, so Hitler survived.

2. The three hours' delay.

(Among others.)

[Eurofed]

There are possibilities for PODs within the OTL sequence of events that showed it could have worked:

1. The bomb being moved after V.S. left but before it blew up, so Hitler survived.

2. The three hours' delay.

(Among others.)

Indeed. Not to mention that there are other just as easily feasible PoDs for the success of the March 1943 assassination attempts (even better, since the vast majority of the Holocaust victims would be spared and the Soviets would entirely contained within their pre-war borders, if Hitler falls in early 1943).

[Eurofed]

And I don't think a proper Japanese attitude toward the Empire's war crimes is worth the huge numbers of American and British dead that an invasion would bring.

Indeed. Japan has behaved very well as a peaceful, civilized member of the international community in the last 60 years. I can take a Germany with a less crushing guilt complex if it can spare millions of Holocaust victims, soldiers, and European civilians, and keep Stalinism out of Central Europe.

[Typo]

You are trying to attribute the failure to circumstances instead of the fact the plot was doomed to fail regardless of Hitler dying or not

If it's one time Hitler didn't get assassinated once because of circumstances it's just luck, when it's like 2-3 times it's because the plotters were just bad

The sheer amateurish of the plotters were outright amazing

[xchen08]

Japan got a conditional surrender in all but name, with just this kind of guarantees,

Got a source for these guarantees? Strange how they don't show up in the surrender documents.

[Typo]

Indeed. Japan has behaved very well as a peaceful, civilized member of the international community in the last 60 years. I can take a Germany with a less crushing guilt complex if it can spare millions of Holocaust victims, soldiers, and European civilians, and keep Stalinism out of Central Europe.Alternatively Japanese militarism is just dormant because it never came to terms with its evils

[I Blame Communism]

As always, any attempt to question the wisdom of Unconditional Surrender draws FDR apologists out of the woodwork, ready to tar and feather with the cryptonazi label everyone who draes question their saintly idol. :rolleyes:

I'm "in the woodwork"? What happened to me galloping about dashingly on a big horse with a red flag on my lance and my budenovka at a rakish angle? :(

However, while I'm not so sure about the guy in the original article, the people at Barnes Review certainly don't need any "crypto-" to prefix their ideology.

There is no question that the Nazi genocidal grip on Eastern Europe had to go. However, the point was not to leave Hitler do what he wanted to Ukrainians. It was to do the best to topple him in a way that gives Stalin as little gains as possible, and does as little damage to Europe (including Germany, which is an indispensable part of an healthy Europe, as America swiftly noticed after the war) as possible.

Obviously Hitler isn't going to do what he wants with Ukrainians: he's dead. The fact of the matter, though, is that the Ukrainians want to keep fighting until all the Germans are out of Ukraine.

Wilful genocide of select groups or not, the situation on the eastern front was daily humanitarian disaster.

So I'm not having with any conditional surrender which doesn't involve the Germans packing up and leaving Ukraine at once, no further hostilities.

Unfortunately, I don't think either the German generals or the author of the article are having with any surrender that does have such a conditio. The article refers to WAllies-German military co-ordination. Against who? Ukrainians, that's who.

FDR's policies, tainted by an unhealthy mix of willfully oblivious pro-Stalinist apologism and Germanophobic revenge-minded bloodthirstiness, were obviously not up to this delicate geopolitic challenge.

An American foreign policy and grand strategy for WWII Europe was required that

A) would push the borders of the area militarly controlled by the Western Allies as eastward as possible, would gradually shut off Land-Lease as the Red Army got close to and beyond prewar Sovit borders, and would negotiate spheres of influence with Stalin on the basis of facts on the ground, without gifting Stalin with any inch of European territory that the Red Army had not conquered on its own and the WA armies could not ever realistically reach on its own. In 1944-45, had the Americans being willing to go this way, a much larger swath of Europe could have been kept free of Soviet domination: certainly OTL East Germany, Czechia, and Austria, if the Valkyrie gamble had worked, even western Poland, the German Eastern territories (spared the ethnic cleansings), and western Hungary.

"Gamble". That's a key word. If we're discussing morality then we're not leaving Germans in Poland. If we're discussing the cold loic of American policy, then we're talking about here is staking your foreign policy, your credibility, your trustworthiness, your respect, your whole diplomatic posiution (and, in a more selfish sense, political career) on the self-interested action of the enemy officer class.

Long odds. Why not gamble on a certainty (military victory over fascism) whilst attempting to limit and moderate Soviet conquest?

It fit the best interests of the rest of the world help the Soviets kick the Nazis out of their land, it did not to aid and abet the expansion of a regime only slighly less murderous and destructive than Nazism.

You know, the Soviets organised soup-kitchens in Berlin despite living on American spam themselves thanks to the German invasion. "Slightly", eh?

The Soviets were a murderous and destructive regime, but the guld between them and the Nazis is so vast that when we bring in real factors like the advisability of gambling away military success and diplomatic credibility or provoking an unpredictable dictator, The Horrors Of Red Bulgaria start to look like an acceptable price to pay for peace, food, and shelter for the people of Europe.

B) It lost nothing, and had the potential to gain much, for the Western Allies to kick "unconditional surrender" in the dustbin where it belonged, and give all feasible support to the German opposition by offering them guarantees for a humane, honorable peace: territorial integrity and national unity in pre-Munich borders in exchange for surrender to the WAllies. To the degree that UC had any sense, it was to occupy Germany and ensure that the roots of Nazism were pulled out by an adequate amount of Denazification, demilitarization, and re-education to democracy. Such terms would have guaranteed a peaceful, civil, democratic Germany just as well as OTL. Japan got a conditional surrender in all but name, with just this kind of guarantees, so giving them to a post-Nazi Germany would have got no political difficulty. If the German opposition had failed to topple Hitler, no loss for the Allies, they would have pressed on as A), if they had succeeded, a great deal of casualties and destruction would have been avoided, among soldiers, civilians, and Holocaust victims.

As has been pointed out, Japan is really not the model of historical introspection. At all. Germany has bene rebuilt into one of the most open, democratic, tolerant, and generall A-Okay societies in the world, which isn't exactly the worst of all possible worlds.

It's quite possible that, if you were willing to gamble on every throw (that this trick works and that you really end up with a democratic Germany purges of militarism) and it paid off, you'd save a bunch of people. Like how a bunch of people would have been saved if the had never even beena war. In the real world, though, there was a war, it needed winning, Anglo-American interests needed serving, and UC may not have been the Great Moral Truth (any more than firebombing civilian targets was) but it was the understandable decision taken to win that war quickly and thoroughly.

People who have to win wars can't make bets.

The last point need to be stressed: if the Nazi regime had been overthrown from within, in 1943-44, a great deal of its OTL victims would have been spared.

Certainly. Of course, given that in the face of this fact, the German opposition failed to pull a putsch makes me question their humanitarian motivation.

[Ian the Admin]

Of course, any attempt to question the wisdom of UC and FDR's policies tends to draw apologists out of the woodwork, ready to tar and feather as cryptoNazi everyone who dares question St. Roosevelt. :rolleyes: But the hard truth is that a much better post-WWII would have ensued if FDR had gotten his fatal stroke in 1940, and left the historic task of destroying Nazism to a President that was not a Germanophobic Commie-lover.

Kicked for a week for trolling.

[Zajir]

I Blame Communism, while it is certainly true that the crimes of the NS-regime were far greater the those of the USSR, you seem to go the other way and negate Soviet crimes, you mentioned that the Soviets open "soup kitchens in Berlin", well what about creating a series of political prisons were all sorts of people not only nazis were imprisoned hell even antifascist Germans were imprisoned and sometimes even killed.

While it is good that the NS-regime was defeated we shouldn't gloss over Soviet crimes or believe Soviet internationalist propaganda just like we don't believe in NS-propaganda.

[I Blame Communism]

I Blamme Communism, while it is certainly true that the crimes of the NS-regime were far greater the those of the USSR, you seem to go the other way and negate Soviet crimes, you mentioned that the Soviets open "soup kitchens in Berlin", well about creating a series of political prisons were all sorts of people not only nazis were imprisoned hell even antifascist Germans were imprisoned and sometimes even killed.

While it is good that the NS-regime was defeated we shouldn't gloss over Soviet crimes or believe Soviet internationalist propaganda just like we don't believe in NS-propaganda.

I hate Stalin: I hate totalitarian mass-murderers generally. Just to make clear that this is a matter of public record, I should probably put up some quotes from my favourite authors, Orwell and Bulgakov. I think there are plenty of places where I'm bitterly critical of, say, crimes against the Kalmyks.

But pretty well everybody who discusses Soviet history is perfectly aware of GULAG. Not everybody seems to be aware of those soup kitchens.

[MerryPrankster]

Alternatively Japanese militarism is just dormant because it never came to terms with its evils

Do you have any factual basis for this alternative hypothesis?

[Typo]

Do you have any factual basis for this alternative hypothesis?

You mean its prime minister visiting shrines container remains of war criminals, and the ridiculous to admit its past wrongs which is a huge diplomatic issue in Asia?

[Markus]

To go back to the topic:

It would have been, really, really smart of FDR to consult his Allies before dropping this bombshell. While it sounded good the practical application was , well practical. When the Italians signaled their willingness to change sides, there was no mention of UC any more. They were even given the status of co-belligerants.
Even the Japanese were given concessions that took away a lot of the unconditional.

All it would have taken was a line like "UC of the Axis regimes" as opposed to "Axis powers/nations". It didn´t happen because the Allies wrongly saw the Nazis as the puppets/proxys of traditional prussian militarism. However it´s a moot point. The Allies could not have made any concessions to the very weak german opposition and had von Stauffenberg and Co. succeeded the Allies would have realized that they misjudged the political situation in Germany, eventually.

[Don Lardo]

Even the Japanese were given concessions that took away a lot of the unconditional.


As xchen08 has already suggested to Eurofed, please name the specific concessions given to the Japanese.

[MerryPrankster]

You mean its prime minister visiting shrines container remains of war criminals, and the ridiculous to admit its past wrongs which is a huge diplomatic issue in Asia?

Is that it?

The fact it is a diplomatic issue in Asia is irrelevant. The entire population of continental Asia can think Japan is going to lay waste to everyone once more if we take our eyes off them and that doesn't make it automatically true.

[Markus]

As xchen08 has already suggested to Eurofed, please name the specific concessions given to the Japanese.

Check the Potsdam Declaration. (http://www.ndl.go.jp/constitution/e/etc/c06.html) Paragraphs 10 to 12.

[xchen08]

Check the Potsdam Declaration. (http://www.ndl.go.jp/constitution/e/etc/c06.html) Paragraphs 10 to 12.

Umm, how are those concessions? The Allies laid out their demands, and Japan surrendered based on those demands. Concessions or "taking away a lot of the unconditional" would mean Japan being able to add conditions onto the demands made by the Allies, which never happened.

For that matter, are you saying that Germany did not get 10-12, or that if Germany had been offered 10-12, it would have surrendered earlier?

[Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy]

Susupiciously, this came just about exactly when the Soviets stopped liberating people from genocidal regimes and started to aid and abbet invasions of other countries and general aggressive grandstanding.

It's almost as if Wallace based his foreign policy on facts and principles rather than Russophobic suspicion...

In 1948, after 3 years in which Stalin had verbally abused his former allies, broken his promises on democracy in Eastern Europe, threatened Turkey with the Sudetenland treatment, tried to break up Iran, overthrown the government of Czechoslovakia, and begun a blockade of Berlin, Henry Wallace ran a presidential campaign in which he blamed it all on Truman and advocated US-Soviet cooperation. His turn did not come "just about exactly" when these things happened. Wallace's views on the Soviets were based on a Kremlin-choreographed trip to Siberia he once took and generous doses of wishful thinking, not facts and principles.

[Don Lardo]

Check the Potsdam Declaration. (http://www.ndl.go.jp/constitution/e/etc/c06.html) Paragraphs 10 to 12.


Those aren't concessions because they are part of the original offer.

A concession is made after the initial offer. Party One proposes A, B, and C, Party Two then counters with A, B, and D, whereupon Party One makes a concession and agrees to D in the place of C.

Nothing like that occurred with the Japanese surrender and, when the Japanese tried to slip in a concession regarding the Emperor's "traditional rights", the US told them to either drop it or stand by for another bomb. Japan then accepted the Potsdam Declaration in it's entirety.

The US made no promises to Japan before the surrender and, if Japan's occupation and restructuring wasn't as extensive as Germany's, that was due to decisions that the US and in particular MacArthur as SCAP, made after Japan's surrender.

[I Blame Communism]

In 1948, after 3 years in which Stalin had verbally abused his former allies, broken his promises on democracy in Eastern Europe, threatened Turkey with the Sudetenland treatment, tried to break up Iran, overthrown the government of Czechoslovakia, and begun a blockade of Berlin, Henry Wallace ran a presidential campaign in which he blamed it all on Truman and advocated US-Soviet cooperation. His turn did not come "just about exactly" when these things happened. Wallace's views on the Soviets were based on a Kremlin-choreographed trip to Siberia he once took and generous doses of wishful thinking, not facts and principles.

I think that's an exagerration of his position in 1948, and I also think that, at a time when both sides were doing all sorts of morally dubious things to get in the hair of the other, a bit of "co-operation" between the two countries positioned to destroy civilisation at the push of a button was not necessarily a bad thing. And of course, given that his views did change, it's pretty clear that he wasn't oblivious to such acts of aggression and bad faith.

However, I was getting caught up in dismissing the "commies run America" slanders. That there was an (above-average) element of wishful thinking in his foreign policy was true. Conceded there.

[Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy]

Umm, how are those concessions? The Allies laid out their demands, and Japan surrendered based on those demands. Concessions or "taking away a lot of the unconditional" would mean Japan being able to add conditions onto the demands made by the Allies, which never happened.

No, concessions can also be made by one's own initiative. In this case, the concessions consist of the US government's decision to retain the Japanese monarchy, hinted at in paragraph 12, and later to whitewash Hirohito's record so he could stay on the throne.

[xchen08]

No, concessions can also be made by one's own initiative. In this case, the concessions consist of the US government's decision to retain the Japanese monarchy, hinted at in paragraph 12, and later to whitewash Hirohito's record so he could stay on the throne.

Umm what? The U.S. did not decide to retain the Japanese monarchy nor to whitewash Hirohito's record until post war and post surrender, and explicitly did not accept Japan's offer of surrender based on the Potsdam Declaration with the condition that the Emperor is retained made August 10.

[Don Lardo]

In this case, the concessions consist of the US government's decision to retain the Japanese monarchy...

Again, that decision was made after the surrender.

... hinted at in paragraph 12...

Paragraph 12 is part of the Allied surrender demands and is thus not a concession. Furthermore, a hint and the hope that it will be honored after a surrender is not a concession either.

... and later to whitewash Hirohito's record so he could stay on the throne.

And that decision was made well after the surrender too.

One aspect that usually gets forgotten in these discussion regarding the Japanese monarchy was the widespread opinion at the time that, if Germany had been given a constitutional monarchy at Versailles with some acceptable descendant of Kaiser Bill, the failure of the Weimer republic and subsequent rise of the Nazis would not have occurred.

No one was chomping at the bit to turn Japan into a monarch-free republic, so the monarchy's survival there is neither odd or a concession. As for Hirohito, while I believe he and many, many other Japanese should have swung from their own ropes, the men charged with occupying an rebuilding Japan decided that wasn't the best option open to them.

[Markus]

Those aren't concessions because they are part of the original offer.

I´m fairly sure that was not in the papers of the Casablanca Conference.


The US made no promises to Japan before the surrender ...

Yes they did, points 10 to 12. Germany never got such promises IIRC and Italy, well it was almost welcomed with open arms. So much for being firm on the principle of UC.

[xchen08]

I´m fairly sure that was not in the papers of the Casablanca Conference.


The Casablanca Conference demanded unconditional surrender, as did the Potsdam declaration. The Casablanca conference also promised no harm to the populations of the Axis powers. The Potsdam declaration just expanded both on the precise mechanics of unconditional surrender, and also the no harm to Axis populations promise. Trying to turn a more detailed explanation into a concession when the final paragraph of Potsdam makes clear no concession is meant...

[Markus]

The Casablanca Conference demanded unconditional surrender, as did the Potsdam declaration. The Casablanca conference also promised no harm to the populations of the Axis powers. The Potsdam declaration just expanded both on the precise mechanics of unconditional surrender, and also the no harm to Axis populations promise. Trying to turn a more detailed explanation into a concession when the final paragraph of Potsdam makes clear no concession is meant...

Well, demanding UC sounds very different than demanding UC and promising to rebuild freedom, democracy, the industry and occupaction only until the above has been done.

The former could give one the impression the Allies wer eplanning for a Versailles time 100, the latter goes more in the direction of "no deals with and an end to the current regime of your country".

[Don Lardo]

I´m fairly sure that was not in the papers of the Casablanca Conference.


The unconditional surrender demand at Casablanca was an off-the-cuff remark made during a press conference. That remark was later expanding in subsequent conferences into a framework agreed upon by the Allies while Potsdam laid out what unconditional surrender meant with regards to Japan alone.

Complaining that UC would mean different things to different defeated Axis nations or that the Allies would apply UC in a different manner to different Axis nations is rather odd. Each situation was different, so UC needed to be tailored to fit each situation.

Yes they did, points 10 to 12. Germany never got such promises IIRC...

Seeing as Potsdam occurred after Germany was defeated and the declaration there was aimed solely at Japan, suggesting that Germany didn't get the "promises" in points 10 through 12 is absurd.

Japan was treated in much the same manner as Germany. The spirit of UC was applied to each. Only pedants would quibble over the minor details of each application.

Point 10 refers to Japan not being enslaved or destroyed. Weren't Germans were told repeatedly from the war's beginning that the Allies fight was with the Nazis and Germany would not be wiped off the face the Earth? Points 11 and 12 refers to postwar economic conditions, reparations, and occupation. Again, weren't Germans informed of the same goals?

The goals were the same, the results were the same, but, because some words were changed, Germany somehow didn't get the same "deal"? Please.

... and Italy, well it was almost welcomed with open arms.

Italy was a special case as the Allies were attempting to "seduce" a minor Axis power. Are you going to complain that Finland was treated differently too?

So much for being firm on the principle of UC.

How much firmer do you want the Allies to be? Germany was told what would happen when it was beaten and that's what happened. Japan was told what would happen when it was beaten and that's what happened too.

[Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy]

I think that's an exagerration of his position in 1948,

No, it's pretty much it.

and I also think that, at a time when both sides were doing all sorts of morally dubious things to get in the hair of the other,

"All sorts?" It was 1948, the US had by far the better record. In any case, Wallace wasn't trying to spread the blame, he was trying to shift it.

a bit of "co-operation" between the two countries positioned to destroy civilisation at the push of a button was not necessarily a bad thing.

You can't really cooperate with a man who agrees with the world's democracies on nearly nothing and is trying to starve out part of your armed forces and the city that holds them. And again, this was 1948; the USSR didn't have the bomb and it was widely assumed it wouldn't have it for many years. Nuclear weapons were one item on the nearly all-encompassing list of issues on which US-Soviet cooperation could not take place, as Stalin had said no to the Baruch Plan.

And of course, given that his views did change, it's pretty clear that he wasn't oblivious to such acts of aggression and bad faith.

Yeah, they changed when the Korean War started, making him more insightful than the people who had to wait until the Secret Speech and the invasion of Hungary. But that's not saying much.

[xchen08]

Well, demanding UC sounds very different than demanding UC and promising to rebuild freedom, democracy, the industry and occupaction only until the above has been done.


I don't know how you can read the above into 10-12 of the Potsdam Declaration. The actual promises are instead not to destroy or enslave the Japanese which is rather a given based on the earlier promise at Casablanca and every other conference to all Axis powers not to harm civilians, to limit deindustrialization such that Japan will survive to pay reparations, but Japan's ability to rearm for war will be destroyed which is rather different from promising to rebuild industry, and that the Japanese can have democracy...so long as the democracy produces an as determined by the Allies "peacefully inclined and responsible government."

[Markus]

I´m not complaining about anything except FDR making that UC remark unilaterally. The rest underlines how not unconditional, if not watered down UC was in the reality. Again, probably the result of FDR speaking without first thinking.

[xchen08]

I´m not complaining about anything except FDR making that UC remark unilaterally. The rest underlines how not unconditional, if not watered down UC was in the reality. Again, probably the result of FDR speaking without first thinking.

Unconditional means the other side doesn't get to negotiate conditions, not that your own side can't set terms either. That would be crazy. And indeed, neither Germany nor Japan (nor even Italy in 1943) were able to negotiate any conditions to their surrenders. Whether the terms demanded in one surrender was more lenient than another is a matter of debate, but all 3 had the words unconditional surrender repeated and emphasized, and all 3 were unconditional.

[Markus]

Unconditional means the other side doesn't get to negotiate conditions, not that your own side can't set terms either. That would be crazy. And indeed, neither Germany nor Japan were able to negotiate any conditions to their surrenders.

Wouldn´t that be "no negotiated peace"? I think wiki´s definition of UC is more to the point: "Unconditional surrender is a surrender without conditions, in which no guarantees are given to the surrendering party...". That is certainly closer to Grant´s use of it. "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted."

[xchen08]

Wouldn´t that be "no negotiated peace"? I think wiki´s definition of UC is more to the point: "Unconditional surrender is a surrender without conditions, in which no guarantees are given to the surrendering party...". That is certainly closer to Grant´s use of it. "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted."

In that case, can you point to what guarantees were given in either the Japanese or Italian surrenders that was not given to Germany? For instance, the only actual guarantee given in the Japanese surrender was not to enslave or destroy the Japanese people, which had been a guarantee given to all the Axis powers from the beginning of the war.

[Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy]

Umm what? The U.S. did not decide to retain the Japanese monarchy nor to whitewash Hirohito's record until post war and post surrender,

I'll give you Hirohito doesn't count, but by the end of the war there was already a consensus on retaining the monarchy as long as the Japanese people themselves didn't ask for its removal.

and explicitly did not accept Japan's offer of surrender based on the Potsdam Declaration with the condition that the Emperor is retained made August 10.To do so would have been a breach of US obligations. Furthermore, Hirohito asked to retain not just his throne but also his prerogatives.

Well, demanding UC sounds very different than demanding UC and promising to rebuild freedom, democracy, the industry and occupaction only until the above has been done.

The former could give one the impression the Allies wer eplanning for a Versailles time 100, the latter goes more in the direction of "no deals with and an end to the current regime of your country".

Germany, which was given no promises of any sort, was almost subjected to the Morgenthau Plan. Paragraph 11 of the Potsdam Declaration precluded an equivalent monstruosity for Japan. And that answers xchen's question.

[xchen08]

To do so would have been a breach of US obligations. Furthermore, Hirohito asked to retain not just his throne but also his prerogatives.


Ah, so you agree that the U.S. in fact did not give any concessions to Japan regarding the Emperor. You state that this was because of its obligations rather than what it would have done anyway, but that hardly matters does it?

Germany, which was given no promises of any sort, was almost subjected to the Morgenthau Plan. Paragraph 11 of the Potsdam Declaration precluded an equivalent monstruosity for Japan. And that answers xchen's question.

Are you reading the same paragraph 11 that the rest of us are? It explicitly says that there will be deindustrialization such that Japan would not be able to rearm for war. It also says that enough will be retained such that the Japanese won't all die while still paying the reparations that will be demanded, but that's just an obvious corollary to the promise that the Japanese people won't be destroyed or enslaved, which was also given to Germany. That the Morganthau Plan would have resulted in the destruction of the German people was precisely why it was not carried out.

[Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy]

Ah, so you agree that the U.S. in fact did not give any concessions to Japan regarding the Emperor. You state that this was because of its obligations rather than what it would have done anyway, but that hardly matters does it?

The US had already before surrender decided to retain the monarchy, do you understand that?

Are you reading the same paragraph 11 that the rest of us are? It explicitly says that there will be deindustrialization such that Japan would not be able to rearm for war. It also says that enough will be retained such that the Japanese won't all die while still paying the reparations that will be demanded, but that's just an obvious corollary to the promise that the Japanese people won't be destroyed or enslaved, which was also given to Germany. That the Morganthau Plan would have resulted in the destruction of the German people was precisely why it was not carried out.

The Morgenthau Plan wasn't carried out because Roosevelt died. The fact is that it was the agreed upon US approach for a period of time. And it would not have allowed Germany "to maintain such industries as will sustain her economy and permit the exaction of just reparations in kind," which is what Japan was promised.

[Mulder]

The terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out and Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine.

And Germany did not get any promise that the Allies would respect its national integrity like this as well.

[Orville_third]

In 1948, after 3 years in which Stalin had verbally abused his former allies, broken his promises on democracy in Eastern Europe, threatened Turkey with the Sudetenland treatment, tried to break up Iran, overthrown the government of Czechoslovakia, and begun a blockade of Berlin, Henry Wallace ran a presidential campaign in which he blamed it all on Truman and advocated US-Soviet cooperation. His turn did not come "just about exactly" when these things happened. Wallace's views on the Soviets were based on a Kremlin-choreographed trip to Siberia he once took and generous doses of wishful thinking, not facts and principles.
Actually Wallace was in favor of improved relations with Russia prior to his trip.
It should also be noted that Churchill was running a spy network in America to influence opinion and even alter the government's position to a more pro-British line. (If we actually had a pro-war organized conspiracy (though I have no doubt many powerful Americans favored war, they were not necessarily organized) such a network would be unneeded.) Ironically for the author of the piece, while it would fit his conclusions, he left it out, in part due to the fact that Britain also tried to get rid of Wallace or at least keep him out of positions of power over foreign relations. (One of the people spying on Wallace was Roald Dahl...)
Lastly, it's ironic that this author apparently supports the Korean War...but Harry Elmer Barnes didn't...

[Grimm Reaper]

Wallace can best be summarized by his deliberate decision in 1948 to run as a spoiler in hopes of costing Truman a term of office in his own right despite the only possible beneficiary being the Republican candidate who FDR found to be utterly unsuited to the presidency.

[Ziomatrix]

I will repeat my comment/question: kill off or incapacitate FDR before the declaration of unconditional surrender. Would Britain be able to influence America's goals for Europe? I doubt Churchill wanted the OTL situation. Does anyone know what the British would have/might have accepted for an honorable surrender (and perhaps beyond the pale of ASB, an honorable peace)?

That is only if the Parliament and House of Lords totally believed in Churchill's rantings on the emergent dangers of Communism or Stalin's ambition to control Europe. Without a complete agreement on the issue by most of the British government it would be hard for P residential successor Harry Truman and Secretary of Defense John Marshall along with Congress to truly take his word for it. Remember that red fever didn't sweep the US until only after OTL post-war events unfolded.

[xchen08]

The US had already before surrender decided to retain the monarchy, do you understand that?


And it explicitly was not a concession to the Japanese, as demonstrated by the U.S. refusing to accept any conditions onto the Potsdam declaration, do you understand that? Also, can you provide a source that the final decision had actually been made as opposed to just certain people saying they think it would be a good idea?

The Morgenthau Plan wasn't carried out because Roosevelt died. The fact is that it was the agreed upon US approach for a period of time. And it would not have allowed Germany "to maintain such industries as will sustain her economy and permit the exaction of just reparations in kind," which is what Japan was promised.

This is certainly not accepted fact. Some people argue this, but there's plenty of evidence that Roosevelt only supported the Morgenthau Plan insofar as he did not understand the full ramifications. Certainly the limited deindustrialization that occurred post war based on inertia from Roosevelt's plans would almost exactly fit in Article 11 of the Potsdam declaration, and has no resemblence to the total deindustrialization called for by Morgenthau.