Abstract
Questions which German historians ask about the origins of the Second World War differ to some extent from those which most historians ask in other countries. They differ even more sharply from the questions which Germans themselves used to ask during the interwar period about the origins of the First World War. This second contrast brings out very sharply the change in outlook brought about by unconditional surrender in May 1945. The total collapse of Germany on that occasion exerted a much sharper effect upon subsequent German views and attitudes than did the decision of the German High Command in 1918 to seek an armistice: a decision taken while the army was still entrenched on enemy soil, and the German population was totally unprepared for the sudden turn of events. After the Second World War the Allies learnt their lesson: they abolished the central government and rebuilt Germany from bottom to top. All this they did, however — and this is a crucial point — without concluding a humiliating peace treaty which stipulated categorically Germany’s collective guilt for what had happened.1 Consequently, there was no ‘werewolf’ organisation2 defying the occupying powers and assembling ‘Hitler cocktails’ for World War III, as many people had feared.
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Notes and References
As to the propaganda aspect see now Michael Balfour, Propaganda in War, 1939–45 (London, 1979) pp. 406–10.
Strangely enough the only apologetic historians in that matter are not from Germany but from Britain — David Irving, Hitler’s War (New York, 1977); and from the United States — David L. Hoggan, Der erzwungene Krieg (Tübingen, 1961).
Franklin R. Gannon, The British Press and Germany (Oxford, 1971) pp. 284–7.
Robert G. Vansittart, Black Record: Germans Past and Present (London, 1941).
Cf. Maurice Cowling, The Impact of Hitler (Chicago, 1977) p. 12.
The most important contribution at that time was the work by Karl Dietrich Bracher, Wolfgang Sauer and Gerhard Schulz, Die Nationalsozialistische Machtergreifung: Studien zur Errichtung des totalitären Herrschaftssystems in Deutschland 1933/1934 (Köln, 1962).
Fritz Fischer, Griff nach der Weltmacht (Düsseldorf, 1964). See also his subsequent study, Der Krieg der Illusionen (Düsseldorf, 1969).
Fritz Fischer, Bündnis der Eliten (Düsseldorf, 1979).
A. J. P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, (Harmondsworth, 1964). See also Taylor, 1939 Revisited, the 1981 Annual Lecture of the German Historical Institute, London.
See Lothar Kettenacker, ‘Die Diplomatie der Ohnmacht’ in Sommer 1939, ed. Wolfgang Benz and Hermann Graml (Stuttgart, 1979) pp. 223–79. This impression is also evident in
Sidney Aster, 1939: the Making of the Second World War (London, 1973).
It must be said, however, that most historians who attempted to prove this thesis concentrated on the period before 1914, notably Hans Ulrich Wehler, Bismarck und der Imperialismus (Köln/Berlin, 1972) and
Volker R. Berghahn, Der Tirpitz-Plan (Düsseldorf, 1971).
Cf. Balfour, Propaganda in War, pp. 148–51, and Marlis G. Steinert, Hitler’s War and the Germans: Public Mood and Attitude during the Second World War, translated from German (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1977).
See Karl Dietrich Bracher, ‘Tradition and Revolution im Nationalsozialismus’ in Hitler, Deutschland und die Mächte, ed. Manfred Funke (Düsseldorf, paperback, 1978) pp. 17–29.
See the standard work by Martin Broszat, ‘Der Staat Hitlers’ in Deutsche Geschichte seit dem Ersten Weltkrieg, vol. I (Stuttgart, 1971) pp. 501–839; also
Peter Diehl-Thiele, Partei und Staat im Dritten Reich (München, 1969) and in English the collection of essays in
P. D. Stachura (ed.), The Shaping of the Nazi State (London, 1978).
See Philipp W. Fabry, Mutmaßungen über Hitler: Urteile von Zeitgenossen (Düsseldorf, 1969) — on Britain: pp. 199–222.
Tim Mason, ‘Intention and Explanation: a Current Controversy about the Interpretation of National Socialism’ in G. Hirschfeld and L. Kettenacker (eds), The Führer State’: Myth and Reality (Stuttgart, 1981) pp. 23–42.
Tim Mason, ‘Zur Funktion des Angriffskriegs 1939’ in Gilbert Ziebura (ed.) Grundfragen deutscher Auβenpolitik seit 1871 (Darmstadt, 1975) pp. 376–416. Mason has since qualified his conclusions somewhat by stressing that this is not to argue that Hitler was forced to go to war in the sense of not wanting to. Cf. his article, ‘Intention and Explanation’.
Bernd Jörgen Wendt, Economic Appeasement: Handel und Finanzen in der britischen Deutschlandpolitik 1933–1939 (Düsseldorf, 1971) pp. 606–8.
Klaus Hildebrand, Deutsche Auβenpolitik 1933–1945: Kalkül oder Dogma?, 3rd edn (Stuttgart, 1976).
Klaus Hildebrand, Das Dritte Reich (München, 1979) pp. 86–8.
Andreas Hillgruber, ‘Die “Endlösung” und das deutsche Ostimperium als Kernstück des rassenideologischen Programms des Nationalsozialismus’ in Deutsche Großmacht- und Weltpolitik im 19 und 20 Jahrhundert (Düsseldorf, 1977) pp. 252–75.
Wolfram Wette, ‘Ideologie, Propaganda and Innenpolitik als Voraussetzungen der Kriegspolitik des Dritten Reiches’ in Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol. I: Ursachen und Voraussetzungen der Deutschen Kriegspolitik, ed. by Wilhelm Deist, Manfred Messerschmidt and others (Stuttgart, 1979) pp. 121–8. This should now be seen as the indispensable standard work on Germany’s preparation for the Second World War.
Gerhard Ritter, Staatskunst and Kriegshandwerk, 4 vols (München, 1954–1968). This is the most comprehensive study on the problem of militarism in German history between 1740 and 1918.
Cf. Hildebrand, Deutsche Auβenpolitik, pp. 55–63; also Josef Henke, England in Hitlers politischem Kalkül 1935–1939 (Boppard, 1973) pp. 109–86.
Henry Picker (ed.), Hitlers Tischgespräche im Führerhauptquartier (Stuttgart, 1976) p. 224 (18 April 1942).
Robert Ingrim, Hitlers Glücklichster Tag (Stuttgart, 1962); see also
Jost Dülffer, Weimar, Hitler und die Marine: Reichspolitik und Flottenbau 1920–1939 (Düsseldorf, 1973).
Cf. his speech in Saarbrücken on 9 October 1938, in Max Domarus (ed.), Hitler: Reden und Proklamationen, vol. I (München, 1965) p. 956. See also Henke, England in Hitlers politischem Kalkül, pp. 187–204.
As to the problem of appeasement see Anthony P. Adamwhaite, The Making of the Second World War (London 1979) pp. 61–75 and the literature he lists on p. 231.
See Simon Newman, March 1939: The British Guarantee to Poland (Oxford, 1976).
Wolfgang Michalka, Ribbentrop und die deutsche Weltpolitik, 1933–1940 (München, 1980); reviewed in the Bulletin of the German Historical Institute, 6, 1981, pp. 14–17. See also his article, ‘Conflicts within the German Leadership on the Objectives and Tactics of German Foreign Policy 1933–1939’ in L. Kettenacker and W. J. Mommsen (eds), The Fascist Challenge and the Policy of Appeasement (London, forthcoming).
Cf. Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann, ‘Groβindustrie und Rapallopolitik: Deutsch-sowjetische Handesbeziehungen in der Weimarer Republik’ in Historische Zeitschrift, vol. 222, 1976, pp. 265–341.
Cf. David Dilks (ed.), The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan (London, 1971) p. 116–20.
Diary of the Chief of the General Staff, Franz Halder, Kriegstagebuch, vol. I (Stuttgart, 1962) p. 42.
Among the many surveys the most comprehensive and detached are: Wolfgang Wippermann, Faschismustheorien (Darmstadt, 1976);
Richard Saage, Faschismustheorien (München, 1976);
Renzo De Felice, Interpretations of Fascism (Cambridge, Mass, 1977).
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Kettenacker, L. (1983). The German View. In: Douglas, R. (eds) 1939. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06442-7_3
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