The Origins of the Second World War 1933-1941

Ruth Henig

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• ISBN:
  9781134319862
• Edition: 2
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Updated and expanded throughout to take into consideration the most up-to-date historical research, this new edition of The Origins of the Second World War analyzes the reasons for the outbreak of the Second World War.

Experienced historian Ruth Henig considers:

* the long-term factors that led to war
* the effect of British appeasement policies
* the significance of American isolation
* the ambitions of Italy, Japan and Russia.

The Origins of the Second World War brings one of the most controversial historical topics to life for a whole generation of students and scholars seeking to understand the reasoning and events behind this major event in world history.

Timeline of key events

Map 1 Hitler's foreign policy: the struggle against Versailles — German territorial losses by the treaty.

Map 2 Centra] and Western Pacific, 1921.

Map 3 The Italian invasion of Abyssinia, 1935.

Map 4 The execution of Hitler's plans: Germany in Europe, 1942.

Introduction

In the past forty years, an enormous amount of material has appeared on the origins of the Second World War. Much of it has focused on the diplomatic events of the mid- and late 1930s in Europe, though more recently there has been an upsurge of interest both in the years immediately following the peace settlement of 1919 and on the wider origins of the conflict. It is no easy task for students to pick their way through this daunting mass of material, and to arrive at a clear view of the central issues involved in the outbreak of a European war in 1939, or of why this war escalated into a global conflict in 1941. Not only are there hundreds of volumes of official papers and documents issued by various governments covering the period, but it is also the subject of some fierce controversies and historical debates. To be in a position to form a balanced historical judgement on the origins of the war, and in particular on the role of Adolf Hitler, students need some knowledge of the different interpretations which have been advanced and of the nature of the controversies to which they have given rise.

The aim of this pamphlet is to present, as clearly as possible, the reasons for the outbreak of war in 1939 and for the worldwide escalation of the conflict by 1941, just twenty years after the signing of the peace treaties which concluded the 'war to end all wars', the First World War. Why did the settlements of 1919 prove so fragile, despite the strong sentiments of'no more war' voiced so repeatedly by so many war-weary combatants and their families in the years immediately after the war? Obviously not all First World War veterans were supporters of the peace treaties, particularly those who had fought on what turned out to be the losing side, and not all set their faces against the use of force in the future to change some or all of the terms. We know that defeat came as a great shock to the German people and led to accusations of betrayal levelled at alleged 'traitors' who had sabotaged the German war effort and push to victory. Much of the published material in the past forty years has focused on the extent to which an Austrian-born corporal, who served in the German army during the First World War — Adolf Hitler — exploited such sentiments, organized a violently nationalist response to avenge the humiliation of defeat, and should therefore bear the prime responsibility for the outbreak of the Second World War. Clearly Hitler did not act in isolation, and much attention has been paid in recent years to the ways in which decisions were taken in Nazi Germany after 1933, the extent of collaboration with Hitler of the German army, big business and government officials, and the ambitions and motives of other national leaders, such as Mussolini, and the traditions and policy objectives of their governments.

The pamphlet is divided into four chapters. The first considers the long-term causes of the war, such as the political and territorial fragility of the post-war settlement, the economic weaknesses of the major European powers in the 1920s and the growing ideological divide which generated such strong social and political tensions both within countries and across the globe by the mid-1930s. The second chapter outlines the successive crises which led eventually to the outbreak of war in Europe in 1931, and to worldwide war by 1941. It considers Germany's European and world ambitions after 1919 and the impact of Hitler's rise to power. It examines the main elements of Hitler's ideological beliefs, and looks at the speed and scale of his rearmament programme after 1933, alongside the growth in territorial ambition of both Fascist Italy and ultra-nationalist Japan. The successive crises unleashed by the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and the Italian invasion of Abyssinia in 1935 are considered alongside Hitler's remilitarization of the Rhineland in 1936 and the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in the same year. This chapter then examines the impact of the Anschluss with Austria and crisis over the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia in 1938, the invasion of Prague in March of 1939, and the conclusion of the Nazi—Soviet Pact of August 1939, alongside Japan's invasion of China in 1937 and Italy's growing Mediterranean ambitions. The section concludes by considering the outbreak of war over Poland in September of 1939, and the way in which the escalating European conflict became linked with Japan's growing Pacific ambitions by 1941, drawing into the war in that year both the Soviet Union and the United States of America.

The third chapter of the pamphlet examines the many different interpretations of the causes of the Second World War which have been put forward by historians since 1945. Much of the material focuses on Adolf Hitler, about whom it is claimed that more has been written than about any individual in history other than Jesus Christ.

Was Hitler a degenerate psychopath, as King Victor Emmanuel of Italy described him in 1938, or 'probably mad' as Britain's Foreign Secretary in 1938 suggested, whose policies were bound to result in war sooner or later, or was his foreign policy acually 'that of his predecessors, of the professional diplomats at the foreign ministry and indeed of virtually all Germans' (A.J.P. Taylor)? Could British and French leaders have averted war up to 1939 by pursuing different policies, policies of deterrence, and by working more closely with Mussolini or with Stalin? Could they realistically have prevented German rearmament up to 1935 and the remilitarization of the Rhineland in 1936, and should they have stood firm over Czechoslovakia in the autumn of 1938, even if it meant war? And how important was the contribution of Italian expansionist ambitions and Japanese aggression to the outbreak of war in 1939 and to the subsequent worldwide escalation of that war? This chapter aims not to provide definitive answers to these questions but to provide a guide through the main controversies and arguments, focusing on the most salient points and helping students to form their own coherent and considered views on the main points of debate.

The fourth and concluding chapter consists of a bibliographical guide to those books and pamphlets which students may find most useful for their work. It is inevitably selective, but offers suggestions for further reading, either to give a more detailed general picture of the way events unfolded in the 1930s or to follow up on specific topics. It is extremely difficult even for specialists in inter-war international history to keep abreast of all the publications which continue to pour out on the period between 1919 and 1945; for students, the array of competing studies and textbooks now available must be very depressing! This pamphlet is my attempt to offer some guidance and a clear path through the maze.

1
Long-term causes

Many accounts of the origins of the Second World War focus almost exclusively on European diplomacy in the years between 1933 and 1939, starting with Adolf Hitler's appointment as German Chancellor on 30 January 1933 and ending with Britain's declaration of war on Germany on 3 September 1939 after the German invasion of Poland. Yet while the events of these six years are clearly crucial in any evaluation of the reasons for the outbreak of war in 1939, they cannot provide a complete explanation. The reason goes back to the Great War of 1914-18 and its impact, not just on the European nations who took part but on relations between Europe and the wider world. Winston Churchill, in the preface to the first volume of his Second World War memoirs, referred to the period 1914—1945 as 'another Thirty Years War'. This was because, as Philip Bell points out in The Origins of the Second World War in Europe, the disruptive impact of the First World War had shaken the political, economic and social systems of Europe to their foundations. And whilst the great powers of Europe, victors as well as the defeated nations, were gravely weakened by the long and gruelling conflict, the United States and Japan had emerged, from opposite sides of the globe, considerably strengthened economically and militarily. Both powers could, if they chose, mount a significant challenge to Britain's naval supremacy and to the worldwide territories of the British and French empires.

The significant shift in power from Europe to the United States, which was very evident in the 1920s, added to the complex problems faced by the major European powers in the aftermath of the First World War, and undermined attempts to achieve political and economic stability. Significantly, E.H. Carr entitled his study of the international relations of the inter-war period (written soon after the outbreak of the Second World War) The Twenty Years' Crisis. Whilst this sense of crisis was undoubtedly heightened by Hitler's appointment as German Chancellor in January 1933, it already existed strongly across Europe in the 1920s, and its elements were cleverly exploited by Hitler in order to gain popular support and political power. As we shall see, social tensions, economic weakness, ideological divisions and the political fragility of the new states of eastern and south-eastern Europe all contributed to the perception of a weakened and crisis-torn Europe. And at the heart of Europe, most crucially, the First World War had failed to resolve 'the German problem'.

A.J.P. Taylor, in his controversial account of the origins of the Second World War, claims that the war was 'implicit since the moment when the first World war ended', because of the failure of that war either to satisfy German ambitions or to crush them completely. His view is that 'The first World war explains the second and in fact caused it, in so far as one event causes another'. Taylor's book, published in 1961, was roundly denounced by large numbers of his fellow historians, principally because he focused his attention not on Hitler himself but on German expansionist ambitions and on the failure of successive British and French governments to check them. These ambitions, he argued, were there already before the First World War and remained strong throughout the inter-war period. Defeat in the First World War was regarded as a temporary setback and, according to Taylor, 'Germany fought specifically in the second World war to reverse the verdict of the first and to destroy the settlement which followed it'.

Few historians accept this analysis as it stands. Furious arguments have raged in the past forty years over the aims and objectives of different groups in German society: were the ambitions of army officers or officials in the German Foreign Office really the same as...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Timeline of key events
• Introduction
• 1 Long-term causes
• 2 The years 1933-41
• 3 The historical debate
• 4 Guide to further reading
• Index