# Was Hitler a good man? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 10, 2013, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967 "2013-12-10T11:21:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2013, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/61 "2013-12-12T05:36:59Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > To hell with Hitler. I am compelled to point out that you should all forget that the movie version of The Watchman even exists and go read the book. Book-Ozy is the same as movie-Ozy (worse, even, I don’t think movie-Ozy has the servants), only his final method is different. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2013, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/62 "2013-12-12T06:49:09Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > As far as Churchill is concerned, he was always quite openly and publicly determined to continue the war with Germany, “whatever the cost”. Link. > > Hitler, on the other hand, wanted to put an end to fighting in the West, so he could put resources into Barbarossa. > > He had nothing to gain by continuing to fight England. Churchill and Hitler both wanted the war to end. And they even agreed on how the war should end - each of them thought the other side should surrender. ---
**Author:** ![sculpey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f04885/32.png) [@sculpey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sculpey)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2013, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/63 "2013-12-12T06:52:55Z")
You lost me at Tila Tequila thinks. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot …Over! ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2013, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/64 "2013-12-12T08:05:34Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > Well, wars can be pretty brutal. During the American civil war tens of thousands died in POW camps. At Andersonville, for example, men picked through latrines in an effort to find bits of edible food in order to stay alive. In Elmira, 25% of the men confined there died in captivity. > > Tens of thousands of civilians - women, children, entire families - we’re burned to death in the fire-bombing of Dresden and other German cities. (Ironically, at least according to Albert Speer, the allied shift to bombing German cities probably helped the German war effort, since the previous strategy had nearly crippled German war production.) And then there’s Nagasaki and Hiroshima. None of this has anything whatsoever to do with occupation policies in general, or Nazi German occupation policies in particular. I’m at a loss as to why you are bringing any of it up. That war can be brutal is hardly anything insightful, and mortality rates in POW camps during the US Civil War is a total non sequitur in response to Germany’s use of slave labor from countries it occupied. > [@](#): > > So I wouldn’t say that Hitler’s treatment of France was “quite harsh” as far as wars go. I can only assume you missed the part where Germany deported 1.5 million French citizens to Germany where they were used as slave labor. This was German occupation policy in every country it occupied. [At its peak the forced labourers comprised 20% of the German work force. Counting deaths and turnover, about 15 million men and women were forced labourers at one point or another during the war. The liberation of Germany in 1945 freed 11 million foreigners, called “displaced persons” – chiefly forced labourers and POWs. In all, 5.2 million foreign workers and POWs were repatriated to the Soviet Union, 1.6 million to Poland, 1.5 million to France, and 900,000 to Italy, along with 300,000 to 400,000 each to Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, Hungary, and Belgium.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_labour_under_German_rule_during_World_War_II) How one could consider this to not be harsh treatment is beyond me, and this of course isn’t even touching on the deportation of French Jews to be murdered at Nazi extermination camps, or the [many massacres](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_war_crimes#France) carried out in France as collective punishment. [ul] [li][Maillé, Indre-et-Loire](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maill%C3%A9,_Indre-et-Loire): On 25 August 1944, Nazi German soldiers killed 124 people and razed the village.[1] The resultant massacre was the second largest in France of World War II after that at Oradour-sur-Glane.[1][/li]On the same day as Paris was surrendered to the Allies, an estimated 80 Waffen-SS soldiers of 17th SS Replacement Battalion (17. SS-Panzergrenadier-Division „Götz von Berlichingen“) entered the village of 600 people in the morning, and killed 124 residents, including 46 children under the age of 14 and 42 women. Many of the victims were shot, the remainder bludgeoned, bayoneted and burned - the village was then shelled until it was in ruins. Survivors later found a handwritten message on several corpses: “This is punishment for terrorists and their assistants.” [li][Oradour-sur-Glane](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oradour-sur-Glane#Massacre): On 10 June, Diekmann’s battalion sealed off Oradour-sur-Glane, having confused it with nearby Oradour-sur-Vayres, and ordered all the townspeople – and anyone who happened to be in or near the town – to assemble in the village square, ostensibly to have their identity papers examined. In addition to the residents of the village, the SS also apprehended six people who did not live there but had the misfortune to be riding their bikes through the village when the Germans arrived.[/li] All the women and children were locked in the church while the village was looted. Meanwhile, the men were led to six barns and sheds where machine guns were already in place. According to the account of a survivor, the soldiers began shooting at them, aiming for their legs so that they would die slowly. Once the victims were no longer able to move, the soldiers covered their bodies with fuel and set the barns on fire. Only six men escaped; one of them was later seen walking down a road heading for the cemetery and was shot dead. In all, 190 men perished. The soldiers proceeded to the church and placed an incendiary device there. After it was ignited, women and children tried to escape through the doors and windows of the church, but they were met with machine-gun fire. A total of 247 women and 205 children died in the carnage. Only 47-year-old Marguerite Rouffanche survived. She slid out by a rear sacristy window, followed by a young woman and child.[3] All three were shot; Marguerite Rouffanche was wounded and her companions were killed. She crawled to some pea bushes behind the church, where she remained hidden overnight until she was rescued the following morning. Another group of about twenty villagers had fled Oradour-sur-Glane as soon as the soldiers had appeared. That night, the village was partially razed. A few days later, survivors were allowed to bury the dead. 642 inhabitants of Oradour-sur-Glane had been murdered in a matter of hours. Adolf Diekmann claimed that the episode was a just retaliation for partisan activity in nearby Tulle and the kidnapping of Helmut Kämpfe. [li][Ascq massacre](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascq_massacre): The Ascq massacre is a massacre of 86 men on April 1944 in Ascq, France, by the Waffen-SS during the Second World War.[/li] The 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend set out on rail trucks for Normandy at the end of March, 1944. On April 1944, 1st, the train was approaching the gare d’Ascq when an explosion blew the line apart : two trucks had been derailed. The commander of the convoy, SS Obersturmführer Walter Hauck, ordered to search and arrest all male members of the houses on both sides of the track. Altogether 70 men were shot beside the railway line and another 16 killed in the village itself. Six other men were arrested, charged with bomb attack after an investigation by the Gestapo, and finally executed by firing squad. [li][Tulle murders](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulle_murders): The Tulle Murders refer to the actions committed by the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich in June 1944, during World War II. After a successful FTP offensive on 7 and 8 June 1944, the arrival of Das Reich troops forced the guerillas to evacuate the city of Tulle (Corrèze), in the Limousin region of France. On 9 June 1944, after arresting all men between the ages of sixteen and sixty, the SS and members of the SD ordered 120 of the prisoners to be hanged, of whom 99 were first tortured. In the days that followed, 149 men were sent to the Dachau concentration camp, where 101 lost their lives. In total, the actions of the Wehrmacht, the Waffen-SS, and the Sicherheitsdienst or SD, claimed the lives of 213 civilian residents of Tulle.[/li][/ul] > [@](#): > > As far as Churchill is concerned, he was always quite openly and publicly determined to continue the war with Germany, “whatever the cost”. Link. Which he was quite right to do so. > [@](#): > > Hitler, on the other hand, wanted to put an end to fighting in the West, so he could put resources into Barbarossa. Cite? The only alleged peace attempt made by Germany towards Britain was by Rudolf Hess, whom Hitler declared had gone insane when he discovered of his unauthorized flight to England. Hitler made neither peace attempts with Britain, nor any feelers on British willingness to discuss peace terms by sending messages through third party nations. > [@](#): > > I think both sides were contemplating war; not just Hitler, but Stalin too. Hitler wanted it sooner, Stalin later. Again, both sides were contemplating war because Hitler had quite openly announced his intention to wage war with the Soviet Union in order to seize lebensraum in the east for the German volk at the expense of the USSR. It’s absurd to say Hitler believed correctly that war with Russia was inevitable when the only thing that made it inevitable was his own intention for war with Russia. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2013, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/65 "2013-12-12T09:16:31Z")
> [@sculpey](#): > > You lost me at Tila Tequila thinks. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot …Over! It’s sort of like [communication](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=710009&highlight=tequila) with an alien life form. ---
**Author:** ![blindboyard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blindboyard/32/2833_2.png) [@blindboyard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blindboyard)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2013, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/66 "2013-12-12T09:33:18Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Len Deighton’s book on WWII (“Blood, Tears and Folly”) recounts an occasion during the war when a woman in Britain was sentenced to a lengthy prison term for saying that Hitler was a good man, better than Churchill. > > Tila is fortunate to be living in different (not necessarily better) times. Churchill’s badness was beyond doubt. ---
**Author:** ![blindboyard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blindboyard/32/2833_2.png) [@blindboyard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blindboyard)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2013, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/67 "2013-12-12T09:36:16Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Prussia was carved out of territory that used to be Poland, if you want to play that silly game. Original Prussia, maybe, but not most of Brandenburg-Prussia. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2013, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/68 "2013-12-12T11:45:19Z")
No, Hitler was not a good man. Not even an average, or a morally compromised man. In addition to his gigantically selfish and toxically racist motivations, he openly reveled in the infliction of terror on his enemies – even incidental enemies who had happened to be in his way as he was trying to kill _other_ people. It’s a silly exercise to argue otherwise – if not something far darker. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2013, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/69 "2013-12-12T12:12:53Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > Well, wars can be pretty brutal. During the American civil war tens of thousands died in POW camps. At Andersonville, for example, men picked through latrines in an effort to find bits of edible food in order to stay alive. In Elmira, 25% of the men confined there died in captivity. > > Tens of thousands of civilians - women, children, entire families - we’re burned to death in the fire-bombing of Dresden and other German cities. (Ironically, at least according to Albert Speer, the allied shift to bombing German cities probably helped the German war effort, since the previous strategy had nearly crippled German war production.) And then there’s Nagasaki and Hiroshima. There’s a difference between war where thousands or even millions of civilians are killed incidentally as a result of collateral damage or the destruction of their support infrastructure and the targeted extermination of tens of millions of people simply because they “don’t fit”. Also keep in mind that the American Civil War is a result of the policy of owning an entire race of people as slaves and Nagasaki, Hiroshima and Dresden are the result of those nations trying to take over the world. ---
**Author:** ![iLemming](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90db22/32.png) [@iLemming](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iLemming)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2013, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/70 "2013-12-12T13:11:11Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Hitler did not have syphilis. Hitler did not have Parkinson’s disease. Hitler did not have herpes simplex (and herpes simplex is not syphilis). Hitler did not have one ball. Hitler did not become an anti-Semite after contracting an STD from a Jewish prostitute. These are all urban myths. Then, I guess, he must have been in perfect physical and mental heath. …as he evinced as a brilliant military tactician. > [@](#): > > Oh, I see where this is going. Rolleyes indeed. Sorry…? You mean, slingshots versus Apaches is pound-for-pound kosher, now? ---
**Author:** ![Fuji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a9a28c/32.png) [@Fuji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuji)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2013, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/71 "2013-12-12T13:16:34Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > While any possibility of an invasion of England was entirely unrealistic due to the Royal Navy, Hitler quite seriously [planned to invade Britain](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea_Lion). The claim that Hitler wanted peace but Churchill wasn’t having it is entirely without merit, regardless of how much [Pat Buchanan](http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/09/03/pat-buchanan-hitler-apologist/) plays at being an apologist for Hitler. This is not really correct. The planning for Sea Lion was half-assed and improvised, especially by the Wehrmacht’s standards of previous (from invasion of Poland) and future (through Operation Marita, invasion of Greece) operations. All you need to know is the number of landing craft the Germans allocated to Sea Lion: [two](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea_Lion#Landing_craft). From _The Deadly Embrace: Hitler, Stalin, and the Nazi-Soviet Pact 1939-41_, Anthony Read & David Fisher, W.W. Norton, 1988, pp. 490-2: \*“It was with this in mind that on 2 June Hitler authorised the start of planning for a possible invasion of the British Isles, to be called ‘Operation Sea Lion’. At this stage, it was nothing more than a tentative idea, which Hitler allowed to be floated only to keep the service chiefs happy. He was convinced it would never need to go any further.” “At the same time, there was always the possibility that if [Hitler] kept up the direct pressure on Britain, she might see reason in any case. So, on 16 July, with marked lack of determination he took ‘Sea Lion’ one step further by issuing a directive for the preparation - but not yet the execution - of a landing. Everything was to be ready by mid-August, and everything was to be done ostentatiously. A thousand heavy barges were to be taken from Germany’s inland waterways and a further 900 from Holland and Belgium. They were to be assembled on the French coast, in full view of the British. The fact that this would cripple the German transport system and bring large sections of the economy to a grinding halt was apparently less important than putting on a sufficient show of strength. No doubt Hitler believed he would soon be able to return the barges safely to their normal work.”\* > [@Dissonance](#): > > Cite? The only alleged peace attempt made by Germany towards Britain was by Rudolf Hess, whom Hitler declared had gone insane when he discovered of his unauthorized flight to England. Hitler made neither peace attempts with Britain, nor any feelers on British willingness to discuss peace terms by sending messages through third party nations. On 19 July 1940, only three days after the issuance of Führer Directive 16 (Sea Lion), Hitler made a speech to the Reichstag (also quoted from _The Deadly Embrace_, pp. 492-3): _“The speech Hitler made that day was to be the last of his great orations to the Reichstag, and possibly the finest… It was a long speech, but the real point of it came at the end: after a vituperative personal attack on British political leaders in general and Churchill in particular, he made Britain one last offer. ‘In this hour, I feel it to be my duty before my own conscience,’ he declared solemnly, ‘to appeal once more to reason and common sense in Great Britain as much as elsewhere. I consider myself in a position to make this appeal since I am not the vanquished begging favours, but the victor speaking in the name of reason. I see no reason why this war must go on.’ The response from Britain to this appeal to reason was a very loud raspberry, and the stepping-up of bombing raids on the Reich”_ ---
**Author:** ![Kable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed655f/32.png) [@Kable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kable)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2013, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/72 "2013-12-12T13:24:11Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Prussia was carved out of territory that used to be Poland, if you want to play that silly game. Everything was carved out of something else though wasn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2013, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/73 "2013-12-12T17:18:38Z")
> [@iLemming](#): > > Sorry…? You mean, slingshots versus Apaches is pound-for-pound kosher, now? Look, if you have a beef with Israeli treatment of Palestinians politically, or in terms of rights, you may have a point. However, you’re under a wrong impression if you think a military mismatch (“slingshots versus Apaches”) is a moral issue. No one can be expected to let the other party have a “fair” shot at killing him – at least, not since dueling was banned. Every nation-state (and many nation-state aspirants) equips its forces intending to have the advantage, when possible, when fighting breaks out. Some nation-state aspirants on the Palestinian side use rockets against, well, whatever unguided rockets happen to fall on. For example. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2013, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/74 "2013-12-12T17:39:42Z")
> [@Fuji](#): > > This is not really correct. The planning for Sea Lion was half-assed and improvised, especially by the Wehrmacht’s standards of previous (from invasion of Poland) and future (through Operation Marita, invasion of Greece) operations. All you need to know is the number of landing craft the Germans allocated to Sea Lion: [two](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea_Lion#Landing_craft). I’m perfectly aware of how utterly unfeasible Sea Lion was, I was responding to **LinusK** ’s incorrect statement that “He [Hitler] never seriously considered invading the UK”, which he clearly did. That, like many of Hitler’s plans, it was ill-conceived to the point of delusional does not change the fact that he did seriously consider it to the point of ordering the Wehrmacht, Kriegsmarine, and Luftwaffe to draw up plans for it. > [@](#): > > On 19 July 1940, only three days after the issuance of Führer Directive 16 (Sea Lion), Hitler made a speech to the Reichstag (also quoted from _The Deadly Embrace_, pp. 492-3): > > _“The speech Hitler made that day was to be the last of his great orations to the Reichstag, and possibly the finest… > It was a long speech, but the real point of it came at the end: after a vituperative personal attack on British political leaders in general and Churchill in particular, he made Britain one last offer. ‘In this hour, I feel it to be my duty before my own conscience,’ he declared solemnly, ‘to appeal once more to reason and common sense in Great Britain as much as elsewhere. I consider myself in a position to make this appeal since I am not the vanquished begging favours, but the victor speaking in the name of reason. I see no reason why this war must go on.’ > The response from Britain to this appeal to reason was a very loud raspberry, and the stepping-up of bombing raids on the Reich”_ Two things: one, note that this was three days after issuing Führer Directive 16 ordering Germany’s armed services to plan for an invasion of Britain. Again, that it would be impossible to actually successfully carry out aside from in Hitler’s cloud cuckoo land does not change the fact that Hitler issued a Führer Directive ordering it to be done. Two: where is the peace proposal that I asked to be cited at in there? The answer is that there isn’t one; it was a speech for public consumption to show what a man of peace he really was. He made a long speech insulting Britain’s political leaders in general and Churchill in particular, the very people he would need to negotiate with if he was serious in his desire to come to terms for peace with Britain, after which he made a vague appeal telling the people of Britain that they were defeated and should give up. That’s not a peace proposal, or even anything that will lead to a peace proposal. One may as well say Bush was making peace proposals to Iraq during the run-up to the 2003 invasion by calling on the Iraqi people to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Again, a speech for domestic consumption demonstrating what a man of peace he truly was deep in his heart while preparing for an invasion. Bush no more expected Saddam to be overthrown than Hitler expected Churchill to be overthrown, and in both cases it still wouldn’t avert war as the end game in both was the occupation of the country. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2013, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/75 "2013-12-12T17:44:57Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > It is to be remembered that England and France declared war on Germany, after it invaded Poland. And that Poland was carved out of territory that used to be part of Germany, before it lost WWI. > [@Tamerlane](#): > > Prussia was carved out of territory that used to be Poland, if you want to play that silly game. > [@blindboyard](#): > > Original Prussia, maybe, but not most of Brandenburg-Prussia. > [@Kable](#): > > Everything was carved out of something else though wasn’t it? There’s no point in talking about all of Germany or all of Prussia when it’s not involved in the debate. The territory that was transferred from Germany to Poland in 1920 was the “Polish corridor” which connected the main part of Poland to the Baltic seacoast. And while the territory had been under German control for a long time, the majority of people living there were ethnic Poles - they spoke Polish and they were considered Poles by both Poland and Germany. Nor did Germany have any reason to claim the allies had surprised them by the transfer. When Germany asked for an armistice in 1918, they explicitly said they wanted to base a peace on the Fourteen Points which President Wilson had outlined earlier that year (in hopes of avoiding worse terms). And Poland was one of those points - Wilson had said _“An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea”_. So Germany had implicitly accepted the loss of the Polish corridor at the time it surrendered and had no legitimate reason to claim later on that it had been betrayed. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2013, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/76 "2013-12-12T17:50:31Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Churchill and Hitler both wanted the war to end. And they even agreed on how the war should end - each of them thought the other side should surrender. I don’t know about that. I think Hitler was happy with the status quo (Hitler controlling Europe). Churchill was not. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2013, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/77 "2013-12-12T17:51:55Z")
**Dissonance** , I’m not **LinusK** and so cannot say for sure, but he originally said: > [@LinusK](#): > > Hitler, on the other hand, wanted to put an end to fighting in the West, so he could put resources into Barbarossa. “Put an end to fighting” is not necessarily the same thing as “wanted peace,” is it? I mean, there’s no reason to think Hitler thought fighting on two fronts was a _good_ plan, right? _Of course_ Hitler would have wanted to end the resource sink that was the campaign against Britain. Preferably by victory, natch, but it seems entirely reasonable to say that “Hitler wanted to put an end to fighting in the west” without necessarily suggesting “Hitler wanted peace with Britain.” Sorry if that looks like an unnecessary semantic distinction, but I’m not convinced it is. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2013, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/78 "2013-12-12T18:03:42Z")
> [@andros](#): > > **Dissonance** , I’m not **LinusK** and so cannot say for sure, but he originally said: > > > [@LinusK](#): > > > > Hitler, on the other hand, wanted to put an end to fighting in the West, so he could put resources into Barbarossa. > > “Put an end to fighting” is not necessarily the same thing as “wanted peace,” is it? That isn’t what he originally said. [What he originally said](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=16921761#post16921761), bolding mine: > [@LinusK](#): > > He never seriously considered invading the UK, **and in fact wanted peace with England** , but Churchill wasn’t having it. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2013, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/79 "2013-12-12T18:05:34Z")
Hah, missed that. Apologies, carry on. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2013, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/80 "2013-12-12T19:30:03Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > Hitler, on the other hand, wanted to put an end to fighting in the West, so he could put resources into Barbarossa. You are probably correct that after having taken France, Hitler would have been willing to sign a non-agression pact with England if one was offered: just as he had done with Russia previously, and with the same long term intentions. It wasn’t about wanting peace with England it was about getting England off his back until he was ready to deal with it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967.md?page=5)