There's another aspect to the sheer insanity of the period that probably would be worth exploring, if only it were possible.

People were so mentally numbed and damaged by the carnage of the first world war, that the second world war was put on track by the leadership that had survived the carnage.

But looking at engines like this, and knowing that they ran on leaded AvGas, and knowing that leaded mechanization was the norm, you wonder if the psychotic leadership was actually an expression of lead poisoning from environmental factors. Just like all those crime curves that trend according to leaded gasoline bans, what if front line WWI veterans were driven psychotic by frontline exposure to heavy metals through exhaust fumes?