In Hindsight: Unconditional Surrender

[The Ex-Factor]

The Allied policy towards the Axis powers during WWII was unconditional surrender, which culminated with the annihilation of the Nazi party in Germany and the beginning of a Cold War with various American and Soviet spheres of influence. Y'all know what happened.

However, it was essentially a creation of Roosevelt. No one knows how he got his way with Churchill and Stalin, but these are the arguments I shamelessly copied from Wikipedia on this very subject:

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On that last point, I'd like to add an addendum that the United States accepted a conditional surrender from Japan at the end of WWII because the Soviet Union had just declared war on Japan and they were concerned about the potential expansion of Soviet hegemony in th Far East. Whatever would have happened if the U.S. had refused Japan's terms and invaded mainland Japan itself, what did transpire worked out pretty well for them.

So my question is, with the power of hindsight, if you were Franklin D. Roosevelt (*pauses a second to allow conservatives to gag*) would you have pushed for unconditional surrender as Allied war policy during World War II?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Yes. That is the only proper way to deal with fascism.

[SPC]

No. I'd rather have had Eastern Europe be free.

[GMantis]

No. I'd rather have had Eastern Europe be free.

What has this to do with the allied policy on unconditional surrender?

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Yes.  Unconditional Surrender is the only way to go in these types of situations.

[John Dibble]

No. I'd rather have had Eastern Europe be free.

What has this to do with the allied policy on unconditional surrender?

If you'd read the original post you might know that. In short, if conditional surrender was allowed then surrender may have occurred much earlier. If that happened, then the Soviet Union's troops may not have had time to gain as much ground in Eastern Europe as they did, which would have meant those countries would not have come under the rather oppressive control of the Soviet government.

[SPC]

No. I'd rather have had Eastern Europe be free.

What has this to do with the allied policy on unconditional surrender?

If you'd read the original post you might know that. In short, if conditional surrender was allowed then surrender may have occurred much earlier. If that happened, then the Soviet Union's troops may not have had time to gain as much ground in Eastern Europe as they did, which would have meant those countries would not have come under the rather oppressive control of the Soviet government.

Precisely.

[jokerman]

Yes, completely breaking the back of fascism was necessary.  Europe wouldn't the peaceful, prosperous region it is today if it wasn't for cleansing it of fascism and rebuilding it (via Marshall Plan with its support and stipulations) along liberal ideals.  And the threat of the Soviet Union helped too, but that further proves the point, as, without a militarily independent Germany to provide as a bulwark, Western Europe was completely dependent on the U.S. to keep it secure.

[dead0man]

If we get to use hindsight the clear answer is conditional surrender of Germany/Italy as soon as was possible followed instantly by everybody turning on the USSR.  Avoiding the Cold War, MAD and all that fun stuff should be our goal if we have hindsight.

[GMantis]

If we get to use hindsight the clear answer is conditional surrender of Germany/Italy as soon as was possible followed instantly by everybody turning on the USSR.  Avoiding the Cold War, MAD and all that fun stuff should be our goal if we have hindsight.

I presume that Germany would also help in this crusade? How long do you think until Germany had recovered all its power and a new conflict began? I give it about 10 years.
In any case, the importance of the Soviet contributions were rather better known at the time and such a betrayal would be highly unpopular, making it rather difficult to carry out. Of course, a pretext could be manufactured. The new German allies would be undoubtedly happy to lend their experience.

[dead0man]

During the entire existence of the Soviet Union, the only time they were on the same page as the West was from the point Hitler turned on them until they (the Soviets) started to cut long standing nations in half.  The rest of the time we were their enemy.  Without hindsight, yeah, it probably would have been unpopular, but this entire thread has been with hindsight.  With hindsight, preventing the Cold War and all those millions of deaths and oppression would clearly be the correct course of action.

[GMantis]

During the entire existence of the Soviet Union, the only time they were on the same page as the West was from the point Hitler turned on them until they (the Soviets) started to cut long standing nations in half.  The rest of the time we were their enemy.  Without hindsight, yeah, it probably would have been unpopular, but this entire thread has been with hindsight.  With hindsight, preventing the Cold War and all those millions of deaths and oppression would clearly be the correct course of action.

We don't know how things would have turned out. It might have been for the better or it might have been for the worse. What is certain is that this would have lead to another terrible war in Europe. The Western allies might not have won and even if they won, the consequences could perhaps been even more severe than in reality.
And during the Munich crisis the Soviet Union offered to help Czechoslovakia against the Germans, but the UK and France were too busy betraying an ally to pay attention.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

With hindsight, preventing the Cold War and all those millions of deaths and oppression would clearly be the correct course of action.

Most of Stalin's victims were already dead by this point.

Besides, I don't think that you understand quite how bad things were in Europe by 1945. The idea of fighting another-world-war-then is just black farce.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Anyway, although it seems obvious, people need to remember what the Nazis did. This is a regime that went on a mad conquest-spree because of a demented, half-baked racist ideology. This is a regime that committed war-crimes on a scale that remains almost unbelievable (that one Russian name for the war, the Great Patriotic War, seems like an absurd piece of nationalistic idiocy until you remember quite what happend out on the Eastern Front. Then it suddenly seems understandable, if still very nationalistic), this is a regime that treated the inhabitents occupied countries as subhuman (to say nothing of the way it ended up treating its own citizens, if the word citizen is even appropriate in this context), and this is a regime that committed the most terrible crime in Human History, one that (or so I would argue) the Western World has yet to come to terms with (and probably never will).

Anything other than Unconditional Surrender would have been an offense to the victims of Nazism. Which, by 1945, included (in one way or another) just about everyone living in Europe, to say nothing of the millions they murdered.

Fuck your Cold War fantasies.

[??????????]

Al pretty much summed it up for me. Plus we should have crushed the Japanese in the same way and then totally isolated the Soviets from the world if we couldn't have done the moral thing, which would have been to topple Stalin physically.

[SPC]

Anyway, although it seems obvious, people need to remember what the Nazis did. This is a regime that went on a mad conquest-spree because of a demented, half-baked racist ideology. This is a regime that committed war-crimes on a scale that remains almost unbelievable (that one Russian name for the war, the Great Patriotic War, seems like an absurd piece of nationalistic idiocy until you remember quite what happend out on the Eastern Front. Then it suddenly seems understandable, if still very nationalistic), this is a regime that treated the inhabitents occupied countries as subhuman (to say nothing of the way it ended up treating its own citizens, if the word citizen is even appropriate in this context), and this is a regime that committed the most terrible crime in Human History, one that (or so I would argue) the Western World has yet to come to terms with (and probably never will).

Anything other than Unconditional Surrender would have been an offense to the victims of Nazism. Which, by 1945, included (in one way or another) just about everyone living in Europe, to say nothing of the millions they murdered.

Fuck your Cold War fantasies.

Wouldn't it have been more offensive to the victims of Nazism to have them suffer under a different tyranny for an additional 45 years? I agree that we shouldn't have invaded the Soviet Union, but it would probably be best to have followed a plan that kept as much of Eastern Europe out of both Nazi and Communist hands as possible. Conditional surrender looks like the best way to carry that out.

[GMantis]

Al summed it up better than I could, but I like to add that the Allies had already experience with a conditional German surrender after World War I and look how that turned out - a "stab in the back" myth, the militaristic institutions of Germany mostly intact and rearmament and a new war in 20 years. It's quite understandable that they didn't want to repeat the experience.
And in any case, no surrender - either conditional or unconditional would have happened while Hitler was alive and considering the effectiveness of the German resistance...

[JSojourner]

Al summed it up better than I could, but I like to add that the Allies had already experience with a conditional German surrender after World War I and look how that turned out - a "stab in the back" myth, the militaristic institutions of Germany mostly intact and rearmament and a new war in 20 years. It's quite understandable that they didn't want to repeat the experience.
And in any case, no surrender - either conditional or unconditional would have happened while Hitler was alive and considering the effectiveness of the German resistance...

You and Al both hit it out of the park.

[SPC]

Al summed it up better than I could, but I like to add that the Allies had already experience with a conditional German surrender after World War I and look how that turned out - a "stab in the back" myth, the militaristic institutions of Germany mostly intact and rearmament and a new war in 20 years. It's quite understandable that they didn't want to repeat the experience.
And in any case, no surrender - either conditional or unconditional would have happened while Hitler was alive and considering the effectiveness of the German resistance...

The conditional surrender in 1918 failed because the resulting treaty was one-sided and pissed the Germans off, leading to Hitler.

[2952-0-0]

Having half of Europe free is better than having all of it under a Francoist-style dictatorship for another few more decades.

[SPC]

Having half of Europe free is better than having all of it under a Francoist-style dictatorship for another few more decades.

Who says a conditional surrender would require ceding all of Europe to the Nazis?

[jokerman]

Europe would not have accepted a conditional surrender of Germany.  It would have meant an entire continuance of the cycle of warfare that had been going on for generations.  I think "better red than dead" would have resonated with Europeans if such a scenario occured, with Marxist insurgencies popping up all over Western Europe in rebellion against such a war against the Soviets.

[GMantis]

Al summed it up better than I could, but I like to add that the Allies had already experience with a conditional German surrender after World War I and look how that turned out - a "stab in the back" myth, the militaristic institutions of Germany mostly intact and rearmament and a new war in 20 years. It's quite understandable that they didn't want to repeat the experience.
And in any case, no surrender - either conditional or unconditional would have happened while Hitler was alive and considering the effectiveness of the German resistance...

The conditional surrender in 1918 failed because the resulting treaty was one-sided and pissed the Germans off, leading to Hitler.

That is untrue. It failed because the spineless leaders of France and Britain refused to defend the treaty. It was actually quite reasonable, considering some of the demands made - for example, the French wanted the new border to pass along the Rhine. And it's the depression led to Hitler's coming to power, after all he had no success at all before that.

[SPC]

Al summed it up better than I could, but I like to add that the Allies had already experience with a conditional German surrender after World War I and look how that turned out - a "stab in the back" myth, the militaristic institutions of Germany mostly intact and rearmament and a new war in 20 years. It's quite understandable that they didn't want to repeat the experience.
And in any case, no surrender - either conditional or unconditional would have happened while Hitler was alive and considering the effectiveness of the German resistance...

The conditional surrender in 1918 failed because the resulting treaty was one-sided and pissed the Germans off, leading to Hitler.

That is untrue. It failed because the spineless leaders of France and Britain refused to defend the treaty. It was actually quite reasonable, considering some of the demands made - for example, the French wanted the new border to pass along the Rhine. And it's the depression led to Hitler's coming to power, after all he had no success at all before that.

I take it you've never heard the joke about Hitler being born in Versailles?

[Ban my account ffs!]

Anyway, although it seems obvious, people need to remember what the Nazis did. This is a regime that went on a mad conquest-spree because of a demented, half-baked racist ideology. This is a regime that committed war-crimes on a scale that remains almost unbelievable (that one Russian name for the war, the Great Patriotic War, seems like an absurd piece of nationalistic idiocy until you remember quite what happend out on the Eastern Front. Then it suddenly seems understandable, if still very nationalistic), this is a regime that treated the inhabitents occupied countries as subhuman (to say nothing of the way it ended up treating its own citizens, if the word citizen is even appropriate in this context), and this is a regime that committed the most terrible crime in Human History, one that (or so I would argue) the Western World has yet to come to terms with (and probably never will).

Anything other than Unconditional Surrender would have been an offense to the victims of Nazism. Which, by 1945, included (in one way or another) just about everyone living in Europe, to say nothing of the millions they murdered.

Fuck your Cold War fantasies.

Very well said, Al.

This isn't Risk.  Millions of lives were hanging in the balance.  Don't cloud the cold, tragic reality with rosy hindsight.