What would be your verdict today

True he did not create the police state but was an integral part of what allowed it to flourish, and can not claim to not know how it worked and what it was set up to do. The camps could not exist without his knowledge of them. Factories used their labor, trains ran to and from. He only opposed Hitler at the end when Hitler wanted a scorched earth policy for Germany. He could feel compassion and take a princpaled stand for the German people but not for its victims. The Nazi empire did not give life for those it viewed as criminals.

 

I'd stick with the 1946 verdicts, what I would change is the 'Smaller Fry' who ran the camps or executed PoW's, hostages etc that got short jail terms once the Cold war was underway.

A lot of those should have paid the full price, they must have laughed up their sleeve at us.

 

Including Hans Fritzsche and Doenitz? Some people there were only inside the government for other reasons than beign Nazi genocidal maniacs.

Yes, the Soviets would have executed everybody inside the Nazi Government, as the Nazis would have executed everybody inside the Soviet Government. They were nearly equal in terms of morality. The US and Britain were paragons of morality compared to the other powers in the war (while committing a few war crimes, and some immoral strategic bombing, these were soft compared to what the USSR, Germany and Japan did).

 

It is true the western Allies had no death camps or hell ships, nor even a a Katyn Forest, but it would be wrong to say they did not have aggendas of their own beyond liberation of oppressed peoples and the defeat of totalitarian states. Further the west did not suffer as the USSR did. Yes some of it was self-inflicted by their 1939-41 Alliance with Germany, but they suffered far worse than the western nations Germany occupied.

Thru out the war the western Allies modified their stance and actions to meet both the military and political needs. Roosevelt wanted the end of fascism yes, but so to the colonial empire system of Britain and France. Britain wanted the end of fascism, but also to protect their empire, and by extension that of France so that they would not be seen as the only colonial power. They would deplore the bombing of Warsaw or Rotterdam, and return it a hundred fold. So to Germany's U-boat war only to do the same thing with Japan only more efficiantly.

Do not misinterpet me, I believe that Strategic Bombing, unrestricted Submarine warfare and even the Atomic bombs were needed tools to achieve victory. Still we must accept that the west had to lower themsleves in part at least to win a war the world could not afford for them to lose.