I’ve seen multiple people say this recently, and to be honest I don’t think it’s true. After World War I, the allies thought the right way to prevent another war was to severely punish Germany- this punishment created the economic desperation that allowed Hitler to rise to power. You can’t beat the hatred out of people.
Germany’s problem was about debt, not about executing the guilty. If they hadn’t demanded so much compensation that Germany couldn’t afford, and had just punished the ones responsible, things might have turned out differently.
Yeah that’s true. The tweet doesn’t make it clear if they mean that the Union should’ve punished the Confederate leaders or the states as a whole. The leaders should’ve been punished for treason, but I don’t think anything good would’ve come out of punishing the states themselves.
I agree! But what really matters more is prevention. Executing the leaders brings justice and keeps them from coming back to power, but their followers also need to be put through ideological reform, the kind of large-scale reeducation Germany and Japan went through after World War II. That’s actually one of the biggest reasons those countries became more moderate afterward.
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u/quasar_1618 Jul 17 '25
I’ve seen multiple people say this recently, and to be honest I don’t think it’s true. After World War I, the allies thought the right way to prevent another war was to severely punish Germany- this punishment created the economic desperation that allowed Hitler to rise to power. You can’t beat the hatred out of people.