OK,
Let’s all take a deep breath here and analyze the facts. And I do understand exactly what site we are on and that WWII figures are going to get more action than normal but I didn’t expect as much Churchill and Hitler jock riding as we got.
It is NOT possible for a country the size of Germany, c.a. 1945, to control the entire planet. History has shown this time and again. Pick an empire (Roman, Egyptian, Greek, Mongol, etc) and you’ll see that the larger they get, the harder they are to maintain and eventually collapse and have to reorganize into a smaller more manageable size. Even if Germany had gained the British Isles and Moscow (highly improbable), those two countries would still have existed and continued to fight. Recall that Napoleon took Moscow and all the Russians did was wait until the winter drove him out and then harassed him all the way out of their country. Plus, the British Empire and navy would still have existed and with Japan beaten by the Allies, Germany would have been largely contained within Europe and Russia. Even that would have been problematic to control. And with Hitler’s natural death it is entirely likely, and history backs me up again here, that Germany’s control over it’s empire would splinter.
Hitler’s Germany was NOT the greatest threat to the human race that has ever existed. Barring an ice age, a supervolcanic event, or a large asteroid impact, post WWII Soviet Union could be considered a greater threat simply by virtue of far greater manpower and nuclear weapons.
And Churchill and Britain weren’t the only ones left to stand in Hitler’s way, either. Not even close. Let’s just assume, for sh*ts and giggles that both Russia and Great Britain had fallen to Germany. What pitiful rabble would be left to stand before the mighty Wermacht? There was still Free France. And despite the German stranglehold on France, the French resistance was still rather active. There was also the US, Canada, and Australia that collectively outproduced Germany by a great deal. And Africa. And India with nigh a billion people to draw manpower from. Oh, and did I mention China? Yeah, I guess that wouldn’t be nearly enough. If Britain and Churchill had been conquered, nothing would have stopped Hitler. :roll:
So now that I have wiped away the Hitler and Churchill shaped stars from everybody’s eyes we can look at them as important historical figures that changed the world and how we look at it now and in the future but NOT Hitler as the leader of the virtually unstoppable hordes of Hell and Churchill as the lone hero standing at Hell’s gate valiantly holding them back. They were highly charismatic and powerful leaders, but both were terribly flawed individuals.
BUT,
after FDR, and Hitler, and Stalin, and Churchill, and Reagan, and Archduke Ferdinand, and Lennon (who gets a bad rap here but had a huge impact on the people of his time), and Lenin, and even World War II as a whole are all relegated to historical footnotes in the very distant future, Albert Einstein’s name will still be said with reverence in the hallowed halls of academia and as a sarcastic insult to someone who did something stupid until likely the end of mankind.
And THAT is all that needs to be said. Except, good day, sirs.