If Nazi won (maybe it’s not really that unthinkable)

Imagine Nazi rule in Germany surviving for decades, with Hitler undefeated in war and succeeded on his death in the early 1950s by a series of lacklustre party hacks who more or less disowned his “excesses”. Imagine then a “reform Nazi” (call him Michael Gorbach) coming to power in the 1980s and dismantling the National Socialist system, only to fall from power as the Third Reich collapsed in political and economic chaos.

Imagine a shrunken “German Federation” suffering ten years of upheaval, before an SS officer (call him Voldemar Puschnik) came to power, first as prime minister and then as president. Under eight years of rule by Herr Puschnik, Germany regains economic stability, largely thanks to a sky-high coal price.

That would be distasteful to put it mildly. But it might be tolerable. The SS, for all its faults, attracted bright, ambitious people, and Mr Puschnik’s career in its external espionage division meant that he was not directly tainted by the crimes of the past. Better a stable Germany than a chaotic one. Any big country is going to have its own security interests, and the Dutch, Czechs, Danes and Poles would safeguard their regained independence best by trying to get along with Mr Puschnik, rather than harping on about the evils of Nazism.

这段文字是我很长时间以来看到的最thought-provoking和最有力的东西了。仅仅是为了“奇文共欣赏”。这段文字的来源是The Economist网站。链接在这里。但是我觉得之后的文章就有点无聊了。所以只选了前面这一段。