60 Years Ago This Week

[djacq75]

Originally Posted by tw

Reality was unconditional surrender.

What in the hell does that mean?

"Unconditional surrender" was a demand made by the U.S. because it sounded bad-ass and we like to be bad-ass. In the context of the moment, the difference between it and conditional surrender was rather superficial; as I've pointed out, we saw no need to kill the Emperor.

But since you're getting metaphysical on me here, "unconditional surrender" was not a fact of reality, it was a political demand that was framed in a specific way by specific people and could've been framed in a different way if attaining peace were the goal of the creeps in power, which it wasn't.

(I suppose the Holocaust was a way of bringing the Jews into line with the "reality" that they weren't wanted in Europe?)