Common estimates are that WWII killed 50
million to 100 million people. So, wanted
to get some understanding of how it
happened, how to avoid such, and looked at
many descriptions of that history.<p>I'm just a US citizen, not a professional
historian, and here have only rough
explanations, maybe not 100% wrong.<p>A really short description: Hitler became
a dictator and then went nuts.<p>For a little more:<p>(1) Foundation. The German <i>culture</i>
didn't have much in resistance, walls,
defenses, etc. against a dictatorship.
Hopefully our US Constitution and three
branches of government will have the US do
better.<p>(2) Provocation. Germany suffered in WWI,
the provisions of the Treaty of
Versailles, some massive monetary
inflation, and, then, the Great
Depression.<p>(3) Unification. Early on, say, starting
near 1933, Hitler was an effective speaker
and able to exploit the culture and
the provication politically to <i>unify</i>
Germany.<p>(4) Success. Soon Hitler was a dictator
and had something of a 4 year plan to get
the economy going again. In simple terms,
the plan worked.<p>Hitler and Germany could'a stopped there
and likely been okay.<p>(5) Empire. Long in Europe, the idea of
an <i>empire</i> was common, and Hitler wanted
one and started grabbing land.<p>There was the reaction of the conference
and treaty at Munich, 9/30/1938.<p>Hitler could'a stopped there, but, nope,
he was only beginning. He had an excuse
he could use -- his <i>master race</i> wanted
<i>living space</i>.<p>(6) Poland. He attacked Poland and
quickly occupied about half of it. An
excuse was that he wanted the piece of
Poland that separated Germany and East
Prussia. France and England responded
with war on Germany, but it didn't do
much. Hitler could'a stopped there.<p>By then Hitler had done lots of ugly
things and got away with them, e.g., the
Holocaust.<p>(7) Military. Hitler's military did well
in fast attacks against opponents not yet
taking war seriously.<p>For longer, larger battles, his military
was not good: His airplanes didn't have
enough range to do well bombing England.
England's defense -- radar, Spitfires --
was good; Hitler's losses were high; and
he gave up.<p>He could'a stopped there.<p>Instead, he attacked Russia; his front and
supply lines were both too long; and
Russia was too much for his "fast attack
military".<p>(8) Two Fronts. While Hitler was losing
in Russia, the US and England did the
D-Day attack at Normandy and quickly ran
to Germany. He was in a "two front" war
with both fronts <i>long lasting</i> and too
much for his "fast attack military".<p>(9) Nuts. He had lots of chances to stop
in place, declare victory, sign some
papers, and live in peace. Instead, as
his attack on Russia was failing he went
nuts and went even more nuts after D-Day.<p>Lesson: Too commonly, if make a human a
dictator, they will be short on
constraints and do nutty things, e.g.,
want to <i>take over the world</i>. So, have a
constitution and a democracy that keeps
out dictators.