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> And in 1918 the victorious powers, dictating a new European peace at Versailles, would not have credited that Adolf Hitler, a destitute, neurotic would-be art

> And in 1918 the victorious powers, dictating a new European peace at Versailles, would not have credited that Adolf Hitler, a destitute, neurotic would-be artist and gassed veteran of the trench warfare, would within two decades undo their new order and plunge the world into its greatest war. According to a book review discussed recently here, Hoover did. Said book review totally transformed my understanding of him. And OK, not Hitler personally, but conceptually.

redis_mlc 7y ago
> dictating a new European peace at Versailles, would not have credited that Adolf Hitler, a destitute, neurotic would-be artist and gassed veteran of the trench warfare, would within two decades undo their new order and plunge the wo Well, when you're too timid to occupy defeated enemies, you get another war. That's why Russia insisted on occupying Berlin in WW2. A little-known fact is that the USA proposed enslaving Germany, which leaked out and is why there was no chance of peace talks. The USA wanted to decimate the population, deindustrialize Germany and make them peasant farmers. Russia subsequently succeeded in doing that. In a way it's a backhanded compliment to how much the Allies feared them.
- mirimir 7y ago
  > Well, when you're too timid to occupy defeated enemies, you get another war. The US occupied Germany for decades. At first, very clearly, killing substantial numbers of resistance fighters. And then more subtly and covertly. Its occupying force was ostensibly to ward off the Soviet Union, but there was a domestic role as well. And its policies in Japan were similar. That's the thing about the US. While there are numerous well-known examples of ham-handedness, US interventions have generally been so subtle and covert that their mention is readily discounted as conspiracy theory.
mannykannot 7y ago
J. M. Keynes, who was at the 'negotiations', also recognized the danger. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/07/opinion/keynes-economic-consequences-peace.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/07/opinion/keynes-economic-c...

redis_mlc 7y ago

> dictating a new European peace at Versailles, would not have credited that Adolf Hitler, a destitute, neurotic would-be artist and gassed veteran of the trench warfare, would within two decades undo their new order and plunge the wo Well, when you're too timid to occupy defeated enemies, you get another war. That's why Russia insisted on occupying Berlin in WW2. A little-known fact is that the USA proposed enslaving Germany, which leaked out and is why there was no chance of peace talks. The USA wanted to decimate the population, deindustrialize Germany and make them peasant farmers. Russia subsequently succeeded in doing that. In a way it's a backhanded compliment to how much the Allies feared them.

mirimir 7y ago
> Well, when you're too timid to occupy defeated enemies, you get another war. The US occupied Germany for decades. At first, very clearly, killing substantial numbers of resistance fighters. And then more subtly and covertly. Its occupying force was ostensibly to ward off the Soviet Union, but there was a domestic role as well. And its policies in Japan were similar. That's the thing about the US. While there are numerous well-known examples of ham-handedness, US interventions have generally been so subtle and covert that their mention is readily discounted as conspiracy theory.

mannykannot 7y ago

J. M. Keynes, who was at the 'negotiations', also recognized the danger. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/07/opinion/keynes-economic-consequences-peace.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/07/opinion/keynes-economic-c...