The idea that Adolf Hitler was some misunderstood or even "good" figure while Winston Churchill was the real WWII villain was once confined to the extreme fringes and unknown to almost everyone else. Today, however, the idea has resurfaced with disturbing visibility — no longer limited to neo-Nazi forums but now defended or entertained on major podcasts, viral social-media threads, and platforms with tens of millions of listeners and viewers.

Glenn Beck, a lover of history and collector of historical artifacts, is appalled that this revisionist narrative is being taken seriously.

“I really don't get it. History, real history, is not a choose-your-own-adventure kind of thing. It's ink on paper, orders in filing cabinets, telegrams, diaries, bodies. It's what actually happened, not what we hope happened,” he says.

On this episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” Glenn sets the record straight about Hitler, Churchill, and WWII.

Lie #1: Poland wasn’t part of Hitler’s conquest plan

“Let me just say this calmly, factually, and finally: Germany's plans for Poland were not reactive. They were premeditated,” he asserts.

The faulty idea pushed by Hitler rehabilitators that Britain conned the West into going to war by promising to defend Poland is easily debunked with an artifact Glenn has in his possession. “It’s called Fall Weiss,” he says. “It's Hitler's operational blueprint for the invasion of Poland, drafted in 1938, a year before [British Prime Minister Neville] Chamberlain said, ‘We're going to guarantee [Poland’s] safety."’

“Hitler's explicitly stated road map [targeted] Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, then the East,” he explains. “Britain didn't pull Germany into war. Germany was already marching toward war — global war.”

Lie #2: Hitler had no Western ambitions

The second WWII fallacy that demands debunking, he says, is the idea that Hitler had “no Western ambitions” and actually wanted peace with Britain.

“Really? Because we have the paper trail again,” Glenn retorts.

“How do you explain Operation Sea Lion — Hitler's detailed plan to invade and occupy Great Britain?” he asks. “You don't draw up amphibious landing schedules across the English Channel just in case.”

But before this plot was even fathomed, Hitler had already tried to tee himself up to dominant Britain. In May 1941, Hitler’s second in command, Rudolf Hess, secretly flew a plane to Scotland with a mission of trying to make a “peace deal” with Britain. The offer, Glenn says, was this: “Let Hitler dominate Europe, and Germany would leave Britain alone.”

He had Nazi sympathizers in high British society — including the ex-King Edward VIII, who had openly praised Hitler and was willing to be put back on the throne as a Nazi puppet if Germany invaded.

“The Nazi files recovered after the war show explicit German plans to reinstall him after an occupation,” says Glenn. “Hitler was not avoiding conflict with Britain; he was planning its subversion.”

Lie #3: Hitler was initially friendly toward America

The idea that Hitler admired America and never wanted to go to war with her is another idea that easily crumbles under the weight of basic logic.

Hitler’s ideology stands in contrast in every way possible to that of the United States.

“Hitler believed the state was supreme, that the German people existed for the Reich. In America, the Constitution is supreme, and it exists to limit the states. Rights come from the furor and the government in [Nazi] Germany; in America, rights come from God, and the government is the servant, not the master,” Glenn differentiates.

“The individual in Germany: expendable. The West is built on the sanctity of the individual. Racial hierarchy is destiny in [Nazi] Germany. The West, at its best, rejects racial supremacy. The Declaration starts with ‘all men are created equal’ — not ‘some races are destined to rule.’ Nowhere in our documents does it say the state must expand endlessly,”’ he continues.

Lie #4: The US should’ve sided with Hitler over Stalin — the greater evil

“People are arguing now that the Allies should have sided with Hitler instead of Stalin. No rational reading of history supports any of that,” says Glenn.

While “Hitler and Stalin were both monstrous,” the U.S. was forced to choose “survival.”

“The question for us was no longer, ‘Hey, which dictator is better?’ The question was, ‘Which outcome prevents Hitler from ruling all of Europe?’ Because if Hitler defeated the Soviet Union, the resources of the East — all the oil, all the grain, all the industry, all the manpower — would have made the Third Reich unstoppable,” Glenn corrects.

But even still, “We knew at the time Stalin was just as bad. We knew we were going to be in war with Stalin at some point.”

Lie #5: Winston Churchill was the real WWII villain

Nobody could see Stalin’s wickedness more than Winston Churchill, says Glenn. “He was the one saying, ‘We can't have this guy as an ally."’

Even still, it’s “not about defending Churchill, who I think is a hero; but it's about defending the record, the truth, so in our moment of confusion and upheaval and ideological extremism, we don't lose our footing on the bedrock of fact.”

“When we begin to question whether the West should have resisted Hitler, where are we going? When we entertain the idea that freedom and tyranny could have co-existed, you're not just rearranging interpretations; you're reopening a door millions died to close,” Glenn warns.

“Be very careful when someone tells you the villain wasn't really the villain. Woe unto him who makes evil good and good evil.”

To hear more of Glenn’s commentary, watch the video above.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.