It wasn’t Stalin. It wasn’t Roosevelt. It wasn’t even Hitler. It was Winston Churchill, whose actions during and after WWI not only helped lay the foundations for WWII, but who unnecessarily caused millions to lose their lives by his determination to force Germany into a war of attrition.
My intention here is not to defend the actions of the Third Reich or any of its leaders, but only to support a narrow claim: that of all the belligerent leaders, Churchill was the one most intent on prolonging and escalating the conflict into a world war of annihilation. Germany and Italy did not want it – in fact, before the conquest of Western Europe, German leaders including Hitler were skeptical that they’d be able to take on Britain in a fight. We can be skeptical of Hitler’s motives for offering peace again and again, and for holding back against British civilians despite months and months provocations, but the fact is that Germany was offering peace, and by all accounts sincerely wanted it. After the annexation of Poland, Hitler told other party members, “The Reich is now complete.” Would Germany have eventually attack the Soviet Union? Perhaps. But they would not have done so in June 1941 if England had agreed to end a war which had no hope of victory short of expanding it into a much larger conflict, by bringing in the USA, USSR, or both.
Like the Turkish massacre of Armenians, the atrocities that took place in the east – for which the German perpetrators are responsible, make no mistake – could not have happened except in the chaos of a world war in which millions were already being killed. Because its so central to our founding ideology, we speak of World War 2 as if it was the best possible outcome, or certainly the least bad outcome, but any objective look shows that it was the worst possible outcome, and that it could have been avoided if not for the warmongers – chief among them Winston Churchill.
I’ve read Churchill’s own history of WWII. And his own justifications for his actions don’t add up even in his own words. The most damning evidence is his waging of a unilateral, one-way air war against German civilians immediately after the German military forces spared the trapped British soldiery at Dunkirk.
There were no good men in command of the Axis or the Allies. But then, as now, Clown World was the greater evil, as the state of our present world suffices to prove.