argumate:

kontextmaschine:

I don’t think most of the participants were thinking of it that way and in any case that essay was kind of maximizing for cheekiness and provocation.

Mostly I think it came down to the Americans sending signals, especially with their victories in Italy and France, that they weren’t going to go for total officer-level purges, they weren’t going to make a thing of executing, starving, or enslaving surrendered troops, and they wouldn’t rape or pillage too hard. (And that, like after WWI, they’d hold the other, more revenge-minded Allies’ debt and thus the whip hand, and they’d learned from the Treaty of Versailles.)

Meanwhile the Russians were signaling opposite, and I suspect the wiser Germans were signaling that they were ready for surrender and demobilization, say in reports to HQ that they expected to be intercepted.

Now, we know from things like the Operation Paperclip files that the U.S. was laying the groundwork for German co-option even before V-E Day, and from things like Wiesenthal and the Israeli Nazi-hunters that prominent Reich figures who saw the writing on the wall were planning their outs at the same time, including putting out feelers to foreign governments. (The Catholic Church in particular, which at this time still had a sizeable geopolitical infrastructure, was a big intermediary for this sort of thing.)

So I wouldn’t rule out some Inglorious Basterds-style direct contacts, or given the way we refounded our mythos on victory, the subsequent and continuing denial of same.

Interesting theory, but didn’t the battle of the bulge have the effect of ceding half of Germany to the Soviet Union by delaying the US/British advance?

If German officers who wished to make arrangements with the Allies couldn’t avoid this, then it sounds more like wishful thinking that had no effect.

Well it’s not like there was an official directive, that’s what I’m saying. And it shouldn’t be surprising that the Western Front commanders weighted their hate/fear heavier against the Western Allies than the Eastern Front.

Also you know, not everyone on the German side was a gutless cynic out to save their own hides, some of them were true believers.

Have you ever actually seen Triumph of the Will?

(You should, it’s everything they say, you can watch it in this, the year Luigi 3, and still spend the next hour thinking “well, I’m not sure what these ‘Nazis’ are all about, but I want in.”)

Anyway, you’ll notice that the biggest audience pops by far are when Hitler foretells the collapse of the Reich, the decay of its institutions and symbols, and the bloody death of all involved.