What if the only way to turn them is a repeat of 1939-1945?

Back in my teens, a Seventh Day Adventist said that to me. I got the better deal in life.

“Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed.

That word is “Nazi.” Nobody cares about their motives anymore.

They joined what they joined. They lent their support and their moral approval. And, in so doing, they bound themselves to everything that came after. Who cares any more what particular knot they used in the binding?”

― A.R. Moxon

If you work in the US, NDAs tied to severance are generally illegal.

Even so, I gave my last employer the benefit of silence for the amount of time my severance would have covered in regular salary. That time is now past.