re: April 30, 1945 - The Death of Adolf Hitler

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exactly - they were broken by the treaty - he was a light at the end of the tunnel for them - I'm as old school conservative as it gets - if you are going to impose those types of sanctions you better have the fortitude to enforce them - no one did so ww2 started the day ww1 ended - he was allowed to fill a vacuum and the rest is history

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We have learned repeatedly that a conquering nation cannot defacto enslave the conquered and strip them of all wealth and means as this will backfire. Like it or not, there is a need to retain a team of administrators from the conquered administration to run things. There is also a need to leave some "wealth" in place (not luxuries, but basic assets and monies) to allow the nation to function as more than a basket case.

We learned this the hard way after WW1. We used that lesson after WW2 to keep Germany operating and prevent collapse, which would've built popular support for communism. We forgot this at the end of the second gulf war, and the result was the collapse of Iraq and ISIS filling the void.