Correcting Dr. Al Mohler on WW II Unconditional Surrender

A few days ago (08 May) the West marked a significant milestone. On that date, in 1945, it was officially declared by Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) that the Axis powers and particularly what was left of the Nazi Government had inked an unconditional surrender, thus ending World War II as a hot war.

This was reported on recently by Dr. Albert Mohler (DAM) of the Southern Baptists in one of his daily briefings. While DAM got a good deal right in his report he also left out or errantly altered a few impactful details that changes the coloration of the story of the Germany’s surrender. This post is intended to provide correction to DAM.

DAM mentions that Germany was surrounded by Allied forces on 7^th May, 1945 with the Communist Bolsheviks (DAM’s – “Russians) on the East and the other Allied forces on Germany’s West. This is true. What DAM doesn’t tell his listeners is that the reason that Germany was surrounded by the Soviet Bolsheviks in the East is because the SHAEF had slowed down their military descent on Germany so as to allow the Soviet Bolsheviks to catch up from the East. Now, this may seem a small detail until one realizes the rape, murder, and general war crimes that the Soviet Bolsheviks were involved in as the barely Russian but fully Soviet hordes descended upon Germany. The Bolsheviks had explicit orders from their high command to rape, torture, murder, and pillage as they went. Leaflets were dropped among Soviet troops at the order of the Bolshevik high command encouraging and requiring such behavior of the rank and file troops. German women from those who were prepubescent to old Grannies were violently raped and that repeatedly by the Eastern Asiatic hordes that served as shock troops for the Soviet Communist Bolsheviks. The accounts are horrific to read and the Western Allies knew it was happening and still drew back so that the animal Bolsheviki could descend on Germany from the East.

There should be no illusion either on the nature of Allied behavior upon German women and citizens as descending from the West. However, what the Allied troops did in Aces, the Bolsheviki did in Spades.

This is the context of Germany’s being surrounded on May 07^th 1945 by the Allies. A context which DAM either doesn’t know or isn’t telling. Another DAM doesn’t tell is that the cost of allowing the Communist Bolsheviki to descend from the East was the complete loss of all of Eastern and much of Central Europe to the Marxists. In brief, the Western Allies allowed Eastern and Central Europe to be occupied and brutalized by the Communists for almost 50 years by their policy of waiting for the Bolsheviks to catch up with them so as to surround Berlin. This major policy error was assured by the decision to invade Europe via France (D-Day) instead of the Allies attacking as from through the Balkans. This option was strenuously argued for by Britain’s Prime Minister Churchill (no hero himself) and others in the Allied high command (Mark Clark for one). The policy decision was made, many scholars have opined since, so that the Soviets would be rewarded with the plunder and spoil of occupying and brutalizing Eastern and Central Europe after the War.

So, yes DAM, the Allies had Germany surrounded from East and West on 07 May, 1945 but it is hardly the case that the way in which the Western Allies pursued that end was not and is not 75 years later any reason to rejoice. Tens of millions of people suffered for a whole generation because of the Western Allied policy in how Germany should be defeated.

Dr. Albert Mohler (DAM) then spoke about the unconditional surrender aspect of the war’s end and again managed to get this terribly wrong. DAM tells us that President Roosevelt (FDR) insisted upon unconditional surrender and that the allies agreed. This is not quite accurate. There was precious little conversation by FDR with the other Western Allies about the issue of unconditional surrender. In point of fact when FDR blurted that tidbit out in a press conference at the Casablanca meet up with the Western Allied leadership, Churchill was stunned because he had not agreed to unconditional surrender. So, DAM is wrong when he reported that Allied leaders had agreed to unconditional surrender in Casablanca. They only agreed to it once FDR unilaterally decided on that policy in order to please Uncle Joe Stalin, who even then was concocting post-war dreams of European hegemony.

Make no mistake, FDR had been advised by his counselors that unconditional surrender was a mistake because it would extend the duration of the War, which in turn would cost many more American lives. These advisors understood that if unconditional surrender was announced the way it was in Casablanca such a position would galvanize the German people’s support around Hitler because the German people would understand that a war ended without negotiation — as most European wars were ended — meant the total destruction of Germany. This is indeed what happened as FDR’s counselor’s warned. Germany fought down to the point of boys who had seen to few winters and old men who had seen to many winters bearing arms against the enemy. With his policy of unconditional surrender that DAM praises so highly FDR extended the war, cost the lives of more American boys than would have otherwise been necessary, and gifted East Berlin to the vile Bolsheviks.

Continuing to critique DAM, we note his praise in this piece for General U. S. Grant. This is the same U.S. Grant that Northern Newspaper’s, during the War Regarding the Constitution (1861-1865) called “Grant the Butcher” for the way he cavalierly used his Troops as canon fodder. DAM clearly needs to read some non-Court Historians about any number of subjects.

DAM gets his history wrong again when he says, “the Nazi regime represented the absolute political incarnation of evil to an extent unimaginable before its emergence,” and so deserved the pursuit of unconditional surrender. If this statement was not so horrific it would laughable. No one doubts that the Nazis, being National Socialists (Marxists) were a terror but let us keep in mind that the chief external threat of the Nazi’s were Stalin’s Communists…. Stalin’s communists who made the Nazi political incarnation of evil look like the equivalent of a schoolboy pulling the pig-tails of his little girl schoolmate in comparison. DAM is just embarrassing when he suggests Nazi Germany as being the greatest political evil ever. It is the statement either of a man who is either historically ignorant or has an agenda. If Al hasn’t read Solzhenitsyn, or “The Black Book of Communism,” or any number of other books detailing the brutality, and evil Character of Leninist and Stalinist Russia he needs to just shut up when he talks about a “political incarnation of evil to an extent unimaginable before its emergence.” The State mass murder by Lenin, Sverdlov, Zinoviev, Radek, Litvinov, Kamenev, Bukharin, Beria, Trotsky, Dzerzhinsky, Yagoda, Yezhov, Molotov, and Stalin make Hitler’s revolting and despicable work pale in comparison.

DAM says that “Roosevelt was absolutely right. The surrender must be unconditional.” That statement is unmitigated bull fecal matter. If anybody should have surrendered unconditionally it was the Soviets but FDR was too worried about kissing Uncle Joe’s bottom that he never put any conditions on the man.

At the end of his piece DAM says “Thank God the right side won.” I go to bed every night not confident that there was a right side that could have won WW II.

Dr. Albert Mohler, like so many members of the Clergy, needs to spend about 20 years in a library before he opines on such weighty matters that he obviously knows so little about.

Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him. View all posts by jetbrane