Having just finished John Nichol's Lancaster book - incredibly very moving last few chapters I must add - I received a copy of the second volume of Volker Ullrich's recent, masterly biography of Hitler from my daughter for Fathers' Day. The second chapter of 'Hitler: Downfall 1939 - 45' is entitled 'Poland 1939 - 40: Prelude to a War of Annihilation', and in the last sentence of this chapter Ullrich neatly sums up the war aims of Hitler, his paladins and, axiomatically, those of the faithful 'ordinary' people of Germany...whom it must be remembered were not all card carrying members of the NSDAP:
'...Poland was a laboratory for experiments that were already casting a dark shadow on the future and presaged the behaviour of the Wehrmacht in the coming war of annihilation against the Soviet Union,'
This then encapsulates the difference between Nazi Germany and the UK ,of whom we have recognised Harris as one of the pre-eminent war leaders.
For Germany this was a war of annihilation, for the UK (and other European Allies) this was a war of national survival. All means necessary to defeat the scourge of Nazi domination had to be used...no matter how distasteful these means may seem, viewed through the prism of time, to a few 'enlightened' (sic) individuals in our modern era