At the 1943 Tehran Conference between the WW2 Allies, Stalin talked of executing 50’000 German military officers at the end of the war.
Apparently Roosevelt took it as a joke and suggested a figure of 49’000 whereas Churchill strongly objected to this saying that such men were only fighting for their country and weren’t to be blamed for what Hitler and the Nazis were doing.
A year later, at Yalta, it was again mentioned between the three men.
Let’s just say that Stalin does this at the end of the war: repeats the Katyn Forest incident and shoots tens of thousands of German officers without cause.
Even without consent from Roosevelt and Churchill – or Truman and Atlee in-charge by Potsdam – does Stalin’s hypothetical actions cause history to look very differently at the Western leaders of the time?
It could be argued that they didn’t know Stalin was serious – it was suggested that it was all in jest by Stalin – and they later had nothing to do with it happening.
But if they knew, especially in advance, and didn’t object how would history view Roosevelt and Churchill now?