Talk:Battle of annihilation/Archives/2018/February

WTF?

"Some historians have speculated that Hitler declined to seek the destruction of the British army at Dunkirk in 1940 for political reasons: to show magnanimity by allowing the British to withdraw, facilitating a political end to the war. This is, however, disputed—other historians feel that Hitler simply wanted to avoid the risk to his armored formations that a battle of annihilation would have required, and Alexander Procofieff de Seversky in Victory Through Air Power implied that the cover of land-based Royal Air Force aircraft allowed the army at Dunkirk to escape."

Lolwut? More 'historical revisionism' makes its way onto Wikipedia. This is beyond 'fringe opinions' and into true nutbar Holocaust-denial territory. No serious historian of any stripe suggests for one moment that the Axis powers did not attempt to annihilate the BEF at Dunkirk, so speculations as to possible reasons why they might not have wanted to must be put in that light. The only people attempting to portray Hitler as magnanimous are Holocaust deniers, and the phrase 'show magnanimity by allowing the British to withdraw' is a direct quote from David Irving's account of Dunkirk. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.59.24.139 (talk) 00:02, 13 February 2018 (UTC)