FDR's Tragic Refusal to Deal with the German Resistance and Abandon "Unconditional Surrender"

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Politician01
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Re: FDR's Tragic Refusal to Deal with the German Resistance and Abandon "Unconditional Surrender"

#106

Post by Politician01 » 10 Mar 2021, 12:35

daveshoup2MD wrote:
10 Mar 2021, 12:01
So, from a total of (essentially) 50 "British" (and Dominion and Imperial) ground force divisions that saw action in 1942-45, basically 40 percent - which is significantly more than 5 percent, I think - were deployed to SEAC... fact, not "claims"...
Sigh - note that I wrote the UK´s war effort not the British Empires War effort. However even if one includes the British Empire as a whole, the percentage does not change much.

The British lost something like 16 000 tanks during WW2, during the most intense periods of the Burma campaign in 41/42 and 44/45 they lost 200.... Aircraft losses seem to be in the same vicinity with just 116 aircraft lost during the first 6 months of the Burma campaign, compared to some 22 000 lost in Europe according to the USSBS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_ ... n_of_Burma
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burma_cam ... 2%80%9345)

So yeah - 95%+ of the UK´s industrial effort, be it tanks, aircraft, shells, ammunition, trucks, ships, went against the European Axis - at least in the September 39 to May 45 period. The numbers for manpower are perhaps slighlty higher, however considered that out of the 1 Million men active in Burma by 1945 only around 150 000 were British, and far less before that - probably not by much.
Last edited by Politician01 on 10 Mar 2021, 12:45, edited 1 time in total.

Politician01
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Re: FDR's Tragic Refusal to Deal with the German Resistance and Abandon "Unconditional Surrender"

#107

Post by Politician01 » 10 Mar 2021, 12:43

daveshoup2MD wrote:
10 Mar 2021, 12:07
And your statement about the Anglo-Italian conflict in the greater Mediterranean/North African theater is pretty questionable, as well,
Mmmh - the Italian Invasion of Egypt was a campaign that was over after one week and cost the British 40 killed,10 tanks,11 armoured cars
4 lorries. Compass cost them 500 killed, 1,373 wounded, 55 missing and 26 aircraft. I am baffled, baffled, how much the British invested and lost against the Italians....


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Re: FDR's Tragic Refusal to Deal with the German Resistance and Abandon "Unconditional Surrender"

#108

Post by daveshoup2MD » 10 Mar 2021, 12:49

North Africa lasted from June, 1940 to May, 1943. It took HUSKY for the Italians to finally throw in the towel, and that wasn't until September, 1943. There was also East Africa in 1940-41 and the 1941 Balkan Campaign.

One week, huh?

Politician01
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Re: FDR's Tragic Refusal to Deal with the German Resistance and Abandon "Unconditional Surrender"

#109

Post by Politician01 » 10 Mar 2021, 13:08

daveshoup2MD wrote:
10 Mar 2021, 12:49
There was also East Africa in 1940-41 and the 1941 Balkan Campaign.
Yes I am convinced that East Africa which was conducted almost exclusively by colonial troops and the Balkan Campaign where the British fought almost exclusively the Germans, diverted a great many UK resources against the Italians :roll:

Unless you can deliver data which shows that more than 5% of British production went to East Asia and that spread over September 39 to May 45 the UK invested more than 5% of its manpower into fighting Japan, this discussion is pretty pointless.

Just an example, the British built something like 30 000 tanks during WW2. Did they send more than 1500 tanks to Southeast Asia between September 39 and May 45? From the data avaliable I doubt it. They build 125 000 guns and 480 000 trucks/cars - at least 6000 guns and 24 000 trucks/cars must have been shipped to SEA to fulfill the requirement of 5%. How about bombs and Bombers? AA ammunition? Escort vessels, Merchant vessels?

Sid Guttridge
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Re: FDR's Tragic Refusal to Deal with the German Resistance and Abandon "Unconditional Surrender"

#110

Post by Sid Guttridge » 10 Mar 2021, 14:25

Hi Politician01,

You are rather missing the point about Britain's war effort.

Britain itself had about half the population of Hitler's Reich, about the same population as metropolitan Italy and about half the population of metropolitan Japan.

It had three main force magnifiers available. It was highly industrialised and technologically advanced, it had a lot of overseas natural resources and it had a lot of colonial manpower available. Globally it therefore ran an Imperial, rather than metropolitan British, war effort. To separate the two is somewhat artificial.

I seem to remember that the total number of metropolitan British military deaths against Japan in four years was about 30,000, which was 10% of metropolitan Britain's total military fatalities.

But how many men and how much equipment could one get into a theatre like Burma?

And why should most of it be metropolitan British if there are alternatives?

As a a relatively small country, Britain's way of war was for long to use subsidised Allies to conduct much of the land campaigning. Later, the Empire's human and material resources provided another way of subcontracting much of the burden of conducting wars.

Cheers,

Sid.

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Re: FDR's Tragic Refusal to Deal with the German Resistance and Abandon "Unconditional Surrender"

#111

Post by LineDoggie » 10 Mar 2021, 19:14

Politician01 wrote:
10 Mar 2021, 10:47
LineDoggie wrote:
10 Mar 2021, 03:14
Actually you will find the UK was simultaneously fighting Germany, Italy AND Japan its in the history books you know
If you had the ability to read properly you would find that I wrote: Singapore/Burma probably sucked up only some 5% of the UK´s military effort, so this does not really count.
Only to you and your biases, to the world the UK was fighting Germany, Japan, & Italy at the same time. Oh you can wibble about it, but the truth is the truth, try it sometime you might enjoy being in the same planet as the rest of us
"There are two kinds of people who are staying on this beach: those who are dead and those who are going to die. Now let’s get the hell out of here".
Col. George Taylor, 16th Infantry Regiment, Omaha Beach

Politician01
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Re: FDR's Tragic Refusal to Deal with the German Resistance and Abandon "Unconditional Surrender"

#112

Post by Politician01 » 10 Mar 2021, 19:24

LineDoggie wrote:
10 Mar 2021, 19:14
Only to you and your biases, to the world the UK was fighting Germany, Japan, & Italy at the same time
On paper and in your litte biased world perhaps - and even then only from December 41 onwards. In practice - not really.

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Re: FDR's Tragic Refusal to Deal with the German Resistance and Abandon "Unconditional Surrender"

#113

Post by LineDoggie » 11 Mar 2021, 02:16

Politician01 wrote:
10 Mar 2021, 19:24
LineDoggie wrote:
10 Mar 2021, 19:14
Only to you and your biases, to the world the UK was fighting Germany, Japan, & Italy at the same time
On paper and in your little biased world perhaps - and even then only from December 41 onwards. In practice - not really.
On paper? I Guess those men the UK & Commonwealth lost during that time frame mean nothing to people like you.

But then thats expected from your ilk
"There are two kinds of people who are staying on this beach: those who are dead and those who are going to die. Now let’s get the hell out of here".
Col. George Taylor, 16th Infantry Regiment, Omaha Beach

daveshoup2MD
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Re: FDR's Tragic Refusal to Deal with the German Resistance and Abandon "Unconditional Surrender"

#114

Post by daveshoup2MD » 11 Mar 2021, 06:16

Politician01 wrote:
10 Mar 2021, 13:08
daveshoup2MD wrote:
10 Mar 2021, 12:49
There was also East Africa in 1940-41 and the 1941 Balkan Campaign.
Yes I am convinced that East Africa which was conducted almost exclusively by colonial troops and the Balkan Campaign where the British fought almost exclusively the Germans, diverted a great many UK resources against the Italians :roll:

Unless you can deliver data which shows that more than 5% of British production went to East Asia and that spread over September 39 to May 45 the UK invested more than 5% of its manpower into fighting Japan, this discussion is pretty pointless.

Just an example, the British built something like 30 000 tanks during WW2. Did they send more than 1500 tanks to Southeast Asia between September 39 and May 45? From the data avaliable I doubt it. They build 125 000 guns and 480 000 trucks/cars - at least 6000 guns and 24 000 trucks/cars must have been shipped to SEA to fulfill the requirement of 5%. How about bombs and Bombers? AA ammunition? Escort vessels, Merchant vessels?
Sid's response is thoughtful; perhaps you should consider it. However, the British/CW/Empire aviation and naval resources in SEA from 1939-45 were, almost entirely, the RAF and RN. Every "Indian" infantry division was equipped (largely) with British (or Lend-Lease) equipment and supplies, and the officers were (almost entirely) "British" at any level above company grade, and even there there was a significant "British" element; same for the three "African" colonial divisions. Historically, the maneuver battalions of the "Indian" divisions generally included a significant "British" element, up to a third of the infantry battalions, for much of the war.

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mikegriffith1
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Re: FDR's Tragic Refusal to Deal with the German Resistance and Abandon "Unconditional Surrender"

#115

Post by mikegriffith1 » 24 Mar 2021, 12:48

mikegriffith1 wrote:
03 Mar 2021, 16:14
If you want to get an accurate picture of just how strong the anti-Hitler resistance was, read Nigel Jones' book Countdown to Valkyrie: The July Plot to Assassinate Hitler. Jones refutes any notion that the resistance was small or inconsequential. The resistance included field marshals, generals, colonels, and high-ranking civilian officials.

Jones makes the same point that Fleming does: that the policy of "unconditional surrender" substantially hindered the resistance, that the resistance would have been even stronger and more widespread if FDR had renounced the policy and had assured the German people that the Allies would treat them humanely and would not seek to dismember or destroy Germany as a country.

Jones also makes the point that Chamberlain's shamefully weak response to Hitler's demands regarding Czechoslovakia prohibited the plotters from staging the coup they had planned on carrying out in 1938.
I should add that Jones debunks the myth that the resistance leaders were just a bunch of ultra-conservatives who wanted to replace one dictatorship with a slightly milder one. FDR clung to that myth, as did some British leaders, including Churchill, although Churchill later tacitly admitted that he had been wrong.

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Re: FDR's Tragic Refusal to Deal with the German Resistance and Abandon "Unconditional Surrender"

#116

Post by Sid Guttridge » 24 Mar 2021, 14:07

Hi mikegriffith1,

The conspiracy was politically fairly wide, but shallow as, necessarily, few knew about it.

The people who had to conduct the coup were all military, and they were almost to a man conservative German nationalists. They were certainly going to be the ones pulling the strings in the immediate aftermath of a successful coup, not least because there was little organized political opposition left to step into the breach.

Cheers,

Sid

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stg 44
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Re: FDR's Tragic Refusal to Deal with the German Resistance and Abandon "Unconditional Surrender"

#117

Post by stg 44 » 24 Mar 2021, 15:34

mikegriffith1 wrote:
24 Mar 2021, 12:48
mikegriffith1 wrote:
03 Mar 2021, 16:14
If you want to get an accurate picture of just how strong the anti-Hitler resistance was, read Nigel Jones' book Countdown to Valkyrie: The July Plot to Assassinate Hitler. Jones refutes any notion that the resistance was small or inconsequential. The resistance included field marshals, generals, colonels, and high-ranking civilian officials.

Jones makes the same point that Fleming does: that the policy of "unconditional surrender" substantially hindered the resistance, that the resistance would have been even stronger and more widespread if FDR had renounced the policy and had assured the German people that the Allies would treat them humanely and would not seek to dismember or destroy Germany as a country.

Jones also makes the point that Chamberlain's shamefully weak response to Hitler's demands regarding Czechoslovakia prohibited the plotters from staging the coup they had planned on carrying out in 1938.
I should add that Jones debunks the myth that the resistance leaders were just a bunch of ultra-conservatives who wanted to replace one dictatorship with a slightly milder one. FDR clung to that myth, as did some British leaders, including Churchill, although Churchill later tacitly admitted that he had been wrong.
There is one scholarly article I found that shows from OSS files that Alan Dulles was offered the occupation of Germany by the Americans and British if they kept out the Soviets in April 1944 by the Resistance. That pretty much puts paid to claims about their goal to get Germany off lightly in negotiations. Edit: relatively lightly, they still wanted territorial integrity as a condition.

If anything that pretty much would have given the US and even FDR their war goal.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4546057?seq=1
Last edited by stg 44 on 24 Mar 2021, 17:00, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: FDR's Tragic Refusal to Deal with the German Resistance and Abandon "Unconditional Surrender"

#118

Post by Sid Guttridge » 24 Mar 2021, 16:01

Hi Stg44,

What page is it on?

Are you talking about Trott in Sweden?

Cheers,

Sid.

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stg 44
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Re: FDR's Tragic Refusal to Deal with the German Resistance and Abandon "Unconditional Surrender"

#119

Post by stg 44 » 24 Mar 2021, 16:58

Sid Guttridge wrote:
24 Mar 2021, 16:01
Hi Stg44,

What page is it on?

Are you talking about Trott in Sweden?

Cheers,

Sid.
I conflated two different approaches; the Dulles one in early 1944 and the the Moltke one in Turkey in late 1943, thought they were linked and presented the same terms.

Not the Trott one in Sweden.

Page 32:
But Bonhoeffer said that the Christian conscience was not at ease with Schonfeld's ideas on the terms of a settlement, and that "There must be punishment by God. We should not be worthy of such a solution.
We do not want to escape repentance. Our action must be understood as an act of repentance." This evidently applied to the Resistance activities, including submission to Allied surrender terms. On the Bishop's prompting, Schonfeld agreed that an occupation of Berlin by the Allied Armies "would be a great help for the purpose of exercising control" (over Germany and her military and other resources).102
Page 34-5.
Moltke sought to launch his approaches through Turkey in July and December 1943. His contacts for this were Dr. Paul Leverkuehn, a law partner of Moltke's before the war and now the Abwehr Resident in Istanbul; Dr. Hans Wilbrandt, a banker who had lived there since 1934 and whom Moltke knew from before 1933 when he managed his parents' Kreisau estate; and Professor Alexander Riistow, a sociologist with connections to the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) whom Wilbrandt had brought in. Moltke spoke on behalf of many conspirators, indeed, probably a broad spectrum of the Resistance. But it must be stressed that the proposed plan for action coincided with his own thinking. He spoke, as Schonfeld had done, more
"politically" than might have been Bonhoeffer's inclination.

Moltke proposed some considerable modification of the unconditional-surrender formula, and a separate arrangement with the Western Allies.108
In return, the Resistance would overthrow Hitler.
After his initial visit to Turkey from 5 to 10 July 1943, Moltke waited for word that a contact with American authorities had been set up, received it, and managed to have Admiral Canaris once more arrange for his trip. He was in Istanbul from 11 to 16 December 1943. Moltke's principal points were: retraction of the unconditional-surrender formula (he abandoned this point when his friends in Istanbul told him there could not be any contacts on this basis); support for the overthrow of Hitler from within; cooperation from the Resistance to enable the Western Allies to occupy Germany.

There were also in the expose resulting from Moltke's visit references to a wing in the Resistance tending "eastward," but the stress, indeed the insistence, was on the swift occupation of Germany by the armies of the Western Powers and on the maintenance of a front against the Red Army along a line from Tilsit to Lemberg. The unmistakable defeat of Germany and the occupation of her territory were considered necessary, but it had to be a Western occupation
Page 35-37
The answer to the approach was the same as ever: silence. In a memorandum dated 29 July 1944 to President Roosevelt, the Director
of the OSS, Colonel William J. Donovan, described the approach, in substantially the terms of the expose, as having been made by Moltke,
who was code-named "Hermann" in OSS correspondence. Donovan commented: "The approach in Istanbul was made at a time when it
was clear that our relations with the Russians would not permit negotiation with such a contact, especially since the plan advanced involved
an attempt to permit Anglo-Saxon occupation to the exclusion of Russia. [. . .] I directed our representative in Istanbul to enter into no
negotiations with Hermann but to keep open the channel of contact.
The American Military Attache was apprised of this contact and of
the outlines of the proposal. Although subsequent to the delivery of
the group's proposal to our representative in Istanbul further overtures
were made and a meeting was requested, this meeting could not take
place due to the arrest of Hermann who, so far as we know, has remained in custody."111

"Further overtures" included those received in Bern since January 1944 and particularly in April, on which Allen
Dulles had reported in detail at the time, and which contained essentially the same offer of cooperation and a separate arrangement excluding the Soviet Union.112

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Re: FDR's Tragic Refusal to Deal with the German Resistance and Abandon "Unconditional Surrender"

#120

Post by Sid Guttridge » 24 Mar 2021, 19:15

Hi stg 44,

And there you show the problem.

An opposition, (not really an active resistance at that time), with no obvious mandate, authority or support, was trying to set terms that would divide the Allies before it would overthrow Hitler.

Bonhofer was arrested in 1943 and Moltke and Canaris in early 1944. All were later executed.

Cheers,

Sid.

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