I was reading Larry Johnson's Sonar 21 column, the latest on the attack in Syria of Iranian officers, and the continuing resistance of Ukraine and how the country is being destroyed.
Larry asks why the Ukraine leadership just doesn't surrender. He goes back to Nazi Germany (and with Larry, the nazis are very bad) and its resistance to the very end, where, as Larry said, the German people were put through a meat grinder. It was apparent, he said, to experts that Germany had lost the war by 1943. if it had given up then, things would have been better for it. The resistance to the end was only destructive.

I thought about this, and there's truth to it. So much damage and loss of soldiers and civilians could have been stopped. Much of the bombing would have ended, and I see that. But I have a problem.
Certainly Hitler's intractability played a part in resistance to "the bitter end," but really, what was the point of surrendering?
The allies had issued unconditional surrender. They made it clear Germany would be dismembered. We all recall the statements of Hans Morganthau calling for extermination of much of Germany; the Germans certainly knew of them. There was no indication of any kind of mercy being given by the allies, as Roosevelt and Churchill wanted to crush Germany. Stalin certainly did.
So, really, if Germany surrendered, what was there to gain from it? Fighting to "the bitter end" was horrible, but in a larger sense, what other possibility did Germany have, throwing themselves upon the mercy of allies who openly said they wanted to crush Germany. Churchill said that the propaganda stirred against Hitler made it impossible for him to consider any kind of peace with Germany except brutal unconditional surrender.

Larry used this in context of the Ukrainians fighting on and on, although Russia did offer to negotiate with them EXCEPT that Ukraine must never remain a military threat, and must be "denazified." To the Banderists this means their destruction.

So, I ask the readers: should Germany have simply surrendered in 1943 or around that time? Even with no possibility of negotiation? Would it have been worth it to have spared people and destruction? Would the destruction had come anyway?
I'm curious.