Hmm, I find this very interesting, and not at all controversial. The caveats about what Hitler was in the real world are perfectly clear, and there's certainly no excuses given for the horrors he inflicted. I think you've handled the subject with care and sensitivity.

Not being a history major, there's a lot about the causes of WW2 I was only vaguely aware of, and I certainly did not sit down and do research before my casual comment above. This all sounds like reasonable educated speculation to me.

That said, I do agree that this is not the kind of thing that ever needs to appear in story. I'm actually rather fascinated by the backstory, possibly extending thousands of years and across ancient civilizations, of this setting and what the existence of magic would have done to alter it. My lack of anthropological experience is kind of hitting me pretty hard, here. =)

For example, I'm starting to believe religion simply isn't a prominent part of the culture because one of the primary purposes of religion, in their inception, is to explain the unexplainable. In this universe, the answer to all those questions could simply be 'magic', with a matter-of-fact conviction that simply didn't require blind faith as we know it today.

With that in mind, I do begin to wonder about a couple things that may end up having a place in the setting, even if not in this story. People will always categorize themselves and split off into cliques, and if religion isn't a sticking point, something else will be. There will always be things like racial and cultural differences, but I'm wondering what positions people will take around witches themselves. Parents who are proud of their witch daughters versus those who never allow them to be tested. People who all but hero worship them versus bitter men, and even more bitter mundane women.

It's mentioned in the story that witches are usually viewed as inconveniently willful weapons or with silly, slack-jawed awe and it's difficult for them to have normal social lives with people who aren't witches. This makes me wonder if they're ever publicly shunned, or if there's publicly acknowledged anti-witch groups. (There's certainly private ones, such as the clique of Allied personnel personified by Reichenberg.)

Story-wise, it may make efforts to locate and deal with Reichenberg and Skorzeny...interesting. I'm fairly sure we'll see something involving them in the next installment, given the last scene in OWAW #18...

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Fearless creatures, we all learn to fight the Reaper
Can't defeat Her, so instead I'll have to be Her