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I'm reading through Max Hasting's new book on intelligence in WW2 and Allen Dulles gets some interesting lines as a serious geopolitical strategist trying to fill in the serious lack of coherent US policy toward post-war Europe; Dulles was convinced that unconditional surrender as a stupid policy and that ending the war early with some negotiations and convicting in a court of law the Nazis after the war was the way to go (in the end of course the Nuremburg Trials were held to differentiate between the Nazi leadership and the German people). Was Dulles right that the war could have been ended sooner at less cost had unconditional surrender not been the policy and the Nazis still appropriately punished after the fact, with Germany turned into an ally of America all the same? Or would this have resulted in the problems of German society remaining with post-war consequences? Or was the Nazi grip such that even giving the anti-Nazi (belated though many were) hope of a negotiated peace not make a difference toward overthrowing Hitler?