What If...

Yesterday I wrote about the Valkyrie controversy. The film itself is about Operation Valkyrie, the attempt by some German army officers to kill Hitler in 1944. The question is "What if they had succeeded?". The obvious answer is it would have been a good thing. The war in Europe would have ended sooner and many lives would have been saved.

The not-so-obvious answer is that it's a good thing the assassins failed. Why? Consider what had happened before. When Germany suffered major reverses in World War 1, a revolution broke out (in November 1918) that deposed the Kaiser, established the Weimar Republic and ended the war. Then in the 1920s and 30s the Nazis were able to come to power with the propaganda that the country had lost the war because it had been "betrayed" by "November criminals". We know what happened next.

Something similar might have happened if Hitler had been assassinated. A new generation of ultra-nationalists might have used it as an excuse to start World War 3. Instead Germany was beaten fair and square. With the result that after 1945 it has been a peaceful and responsible nation. Now if only they would stop getting so worked up over Tom Cruise...