Montecassino was a side issue

Girondist,adthelad.
The Poles were brave at Montecassino argument is irrelevant to the larger issue.

Was it axiomatic that the Poles would be settled by the Volksdeutsche? Isn't this intentionalist idea of history out of date - the idea that Hitler wanted to conquer the whole world. It's possible that he made it all up as he went along, and that Hiommler's barmy ideas became incorporated along the way.

In fact, as AJP Taylor points out, Hitler felt much lessv visceral hostility to the Poles than to the Czechs, as an Austrian. And Poland was in an alliance of sorts with Germany in 1938 - hence's Poland's noble part in the partition of Czechoslovakia as one of Hitler's jackals.

Even if Hitler was unable to find accommodation with the Poles, the Brits should not have allied itself with this busted flush which precluded an alliance with the Soviets, which the Poles vetoed. The Soviet were ready to give the Poles assistance in a way the Brits weren't, in a triple alliance with Britain and Poland, perhaps placing tripwire armies along the German-Polish border. The Poles vetoed this because they said their army was strong enough and, of course, because they didn't want Soviet influence in their country. Well, this happened anyway didn't it, after 6m Polish wardead.
AJP Taylor's Origins of the Second World War caused a sensation when it came it out - but he was also one of the best and most iconoclastic historians of the century.

All this is relevant to today's debate because once again the west is ignoring Russia's reasonable calls for cooperation for much shriller voices from the less effective Poles.