How Bad Was Hitler?

I know a lot of you are fans of World War Two Movies and Stories and so on, so you might want to sit down for this one.

Hot on the heels of President Bush's comments about Yalta (dissected by Arthur Schlesinger Jr. at the Huffington Report, as previously noted), we have a nice article by Pat Buchannan that suggests World War 2 might have been a mistake for the Western Powers.

True, U.S. and British troops liberated France, Holland and Belgium from Nazi occupation. But before Britain declared war on Germany, France, Holland and Belgium did not need to be liberated. They were free. They were only invaded and occupied after Britain and France declared war on Germany – on behalf of Poland.

When one considers the losses suffered by Britain and France – hundreds of thousands dead, destitution, bankruptcy, the end of the empires – was World War II worth it, considering that Poland and all the other nations east of the Elbe were lost anyway?

If the objective of the West was the destruction of Nazi Germany, it was a "smashing" success. But why destroy Hitler? If to liberate Germans, it was not worth it. After all, the Germans voted Hitler in.

Well I will leave it to my readers to consider the wisdom of Pat Buchannan's words.