To bring England to her knees by force, he told his generals that day, “would not benefit Germany… only Japan, the United States and others.” It may be, then, though some doubt it, that Hitler restrained his armored forces before Dunkirk in order to spare Britain a bitter humiliation and thereby facilitate a peace settlement. It would have to be, as he said, a peace in which the British left Germany free to turn once more eastward, this time against Russia. London would have to recognize, as he also said, the Third Reich’s domination of the Continent. For the next couple of months Hitler would
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