1940s Pulp Time-Travel Story

Question

I know this isn't very much to go on, but - I read this short story or novelette in the 1960s, but it was definitely published during the 1940s, specifically the World War Two period. I can't remember if it was in a magazine or an anthology; all I know is that it was definitely not the place of the story's original publication. The story involves a World War Two-era American who is somehow transported to the far future; there he meets a scientist and has an adventure. In the course of the story the MC asks the scientist who won the war. The scientist says "There were so many world wars in the 20th Century you can't expect me to keep them all straight," or words to that effect. The only other detail I can remember is that wand-like disintegrators were used.

Answer 1

I think this is probably the novella Barrier by Anthony Boucher.

The protagonist is John Brent and he is sent 500 years into the future in an experiment. The story starts:

The first difficulty was with language.

That is only to be expected when you jump five hundred-years, but it is nonetheless perplexing to have your first casual query of: “What city is this?” answered by the sentence: “Stappers will get you. Or be you Slanduch?”

Where Stappers turns out to be the Gestapo. The conversation you remember is:

I asked Alex—and I must confess almost fearfully— “Then did Germany win the war?”

He not unnaturally countered with, “Which war?”

“The Second World War. Started in 1939”

“Second?” Alex paused. “Oh, yes. Stephen once telled me that they—you used to have numbers for wars before historians simply called 1900’s Century of Wars. But as to who winned which ... who remembers?

I read it in the collection 6 Great Short Novels of Science Fiction.