Hitler and Other Dictators

One question which you may face--from the Investigating Officer, from the chaplain, and even from yourself--is whether you would have fought against Hitler.

In a way, it's an unfair question. Many people who fought in World War II now believe that all war is wrong. Others who refused to fight now think they made a mistake and should have fought. There's nothing you can do to change what happened in Europe in 1939 or 1943--long before you were born. It's all in the past, and war today is completely different from what it was then. How can you know what you would have thought? How can anyone expect you to know?

You can try to think what you might have done if you had held your current beliefs, but even that isn't easy. People at the time had very different reactions to Hitler. They didn't know, in 1938 or 1939, what would happen in 1941 or 1945. We now see Hitler in the light of what happened later--which people at the time couldn't have done. So, though you can try to think how your beliefs would have applied then, you can't really be sure.

The courts disagree on whether you have to be sure. If you aren't, though, there's a good chance that you can still qualify as a CO. For details, see Chapter 14.

Hitler presents a hard problem because, except for a few modern Nazis, everyone now agrees that he was responsible for great evil. And most people think of World War II as the "good" war. It's even become a fad, as you can see in any bookstore or any store that sells strategy games.

Was it really that simple? What can we learn from the history of Europe in the 1930s and 1940s? This chapter can't answer these questions for you, but it can give you a start.

Hitler as Symbol and Reality

Hitler and World War II

The Coming of the War

Appeasement

A Dilemma

The Horrors of War

The Holocaust

Another Hitler Today?

Saddam Hussein and Hitler

Learning from History

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