At which point does "unconditional surrender" becomes unavoidable for Germany?

[Aisha Clan-Clan]

Is there any chance of Germany just cashing out after the fall of France? Obviously Hitler is there doing his thing in real life, but if Germany had given up France minus some border adjustments is there really that much desire in Britain to keep fighting? It’s awfully easy to say that they’ll fight on the beaches etc, but if Germany puts out obvious peace feelers will people actually want to fight?

Yeah. Just have Hitler conveniently die in summer of 1940.

 

[DougM]

Think about this for a second l. Who attacked the US? Who is viewed as the big bad in WW2? Hint we are taking two different countries.

Ince Germany declaims war on the US it is basically going to be Unconditional Surender or something extreamly close to it. The folks in the US (and probably in GB as well) and all the Wallies have had it at this point. Germany has started TWO world wars in 30 years or so. They have broken every agreement made in the first one that was out in to stop them starting a 2nd so you can’t count a a promise not to do it again,,. You KNOW that dose not work.

So Germany is going yo either accept a treaty that is basically what was done to them or they will get curb stomped. As the awaloies in general and the US spicificly are not going to allow any chance of a round 3. And pretty much any treaty acceptable yo any form of German government is an invitation to WW3. The German Buggalo.

Remember the folks fighteing WW2 were either old enough to remember WW1, Fought in WW1, or had parents that Fought n WW1. So they are vary much the WW1 generation as far as knowledge of that war and as a result they are angry that they are back fighting Hermany again. Often in j the same battlefields They or there parents/uncles fought in the last time. As such they are not going yo take a chance that the next generation will nedd to fight on these battlefields a third time. Not as long as they CAN force the issue. And as pointed out elswhere once the US joins GB/the Wallies then the Alies CAN for unconditional surrender if they are willing to pay the cost. And it is a cost they are willing to pay having seen how well a dictated peace treaty worked. Just imagine how a negotiated peace would work out...

 

[Father Maryland]

In 1939, when Germany attacked Poland it had two goals. One was the return of certain territories which had been taken away afer WWI to reconstitute Poland. The other was to be able to expand eastwards as envisioned by Hitler. Poland wasn’t a poor victim bullied by nasty old Germany. There was a history dating back centuries between both countries with them fighting over the same territory. Sometimes Poland claimed it. Sometimes Prussia/Germany. Just after WWI, Poland actually attacked Germany for territory.

T

You're seriously suggesting that the country which Germany planned to essentially exterminate 90 percent of it's pre war populace wasn't a victim?

Yes theirs a long history between the two and yes the Brits and French had done a lot of bad things in their Colonial Empires and no one is disputing that. But Germany actively intended to not just adjust a couple borders here and their but completely exterminate Poles as a nation with a small portion being "Aryanized" and the vast majority being murdered either slowly or fast.

For Britain and France at that point it was pretty basic self defense and anyone can see that. Hitler had made no secret that he fully intended to stomp the French flat. He wasn't planning on just "correcting some wrongs" but completely smashing them as a nation and putting in place a worse version of a reverse Versailles on France. He was intending on putting the French in a position where his boot was on their neck and it would never be lifted. They wouldn't be completely wiped out as a nation and a people but they were going to be beaten and humbled badly. With the Molotov Ribbentrop pact in place it seemed like Germany and the Soviets were firmly allied and Germany could now turn westward. So the instant Germany staged their crappy false flag and went into Poland it became apparent to anyone with a notion of basic strategy and the political situation that France was next. And for the Brits just sitting by would be moronic since now you'd have an openly expansionist power hell bent on subjugating Europe and with all the resources and industries of Western Europe at his disposal (as well as potentially those European countries colonial empires as well). They'd have utterly massive forces and be all of twenty or so miles from Britain herself.

You're using the classic "Well the US had Manifest destiny so Germany really wasn't doing anything that bad" argument. The thing is by the 1930's and 1940's the world wide cultural norms were starting to finally recognize that say conquering a people and enslaving them was a bad thing. And Germanies plan's could be summed up as "Well look at the Congo Free State. Now let's do something like that but much worse.".

Two wrongs don't make a right. Britain conquering India in the 1700s/1800's doesn't make Germany trying to enact the single largest organized plan for mass murder in human history a good thing.

Nobody is saying that British India or French Algeria were good things.