World War II was a big mistake
American Nicholson Baker tosses out some fairly unique ideas about the Second World War, namely that the allies should have left Hitler alone.
His new book Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization will probably offend as many as it intrigues.
“In the worst case,” he says, “you would have had 15 years of the Third Reich at peace in Europe. That is an incomprehensibly bad thing, but, as long as the United States and England reopened their borders, millions of people would have survived. And I don’t care about British hon-our, I’m not interested in it. I’m interested in the people who were actually suffering at the bottom of the hierarchy in Germany – those were the Jews.”
His eyes are fixed on some distant, western point in the vicinity of Fenway Park or Cambridge. “I think even the absolute worst moment – which is allowing this idea of Adolf Hitler to be in charge of an entire sub-continent for the duration of his life, however long it was, and yet at peace – that that horrific idea would have allowed more beautiful things to survive everywhere (truth, public truth, beautiful buildings and human beings) than what actually happened.”
Full article in The Times
