Origins Of The Second World War In EuropeEssay Preview: Origins Of The Second World War In EuropeReport this essayTo uncover the origins of the Second World War is a difficult task and to summarize it, even more so, but this is exactly what historian P.M.H. Bell does in his astounding book The Origins of the Second World War in Europe. Although Bell does a great job of providing accounts on both sides of the debate on the origins of the Second World War, he does have his own mindset about it. In his eyes, Bell sees the Second World War as being a thirty year war, driven by the ideology and economics of Germany, which was not preplanned by blueprint. He outlines this very clearly in the conclusion of his book, basing it on knowledge that he interlaid throughout.
If Bell is right about the war being a century-long war, it will almost certainly continue to unfold for three hundred and fifty years to come. This will mean that the First World War will come back to the forefront. Bell makes a big argument for this as it is the greatest humanitarian disaster of our time. His book is so comprehensive, it can be read in almost any language and is well worth buying. For those who are able to understand the details of why the German leadership decided it was ready to kill millions of citizens in just days (or weeks), Bell says this:
It is the first time that we’ve heard of a non-human entity which had the ability to literally kill hundreds of millions of men.
What? Why? What is going on with the mass of such a colossal, inhuman mass? What is going to happen to them once they are killed because of not knowing who the “other” is? Can those responsible?
In Bell’s time, the very existence of the Second World War was a question that had been asked by many thousands of people. What happened to the Germans after that war? It is quite possible the situation is the same for other wars around the world. In this book Bell lays out the historical background of how the Third World War unfolded. Although not every group in the Great Powers understood the “war was over” in the Third World War, it is clear that there was much misunderstanding on the part of some nations.
Before our first world war began with the Nazi Germany, the United States and the Soviet Union were fighting in their own wars. The United States was not an imperialist power and although many US military power was fighting in World War II this did not lead to any real peace. During the war both sides were fighting to expand their economic power and to preserve their interests over their political goals.
As we can see from our own government, the USSR had their own foreign policy. Its policy was largely to keep a firm hold on western Europe and not to interfere with their internal affairs. Since the Nazis wanted to dominate everything else around them they imposed the idea of the “peace dividend” on the countries they occupied.
In 1941, they were willing to go along with “free” Germany’s war with the USSR. However on the whole they did not see the issue differently. In 1941 they took on the German occupation as a result of their “war”, even though it was not a political operation.
This was because the Nazi war machine did not want the Soviets to have any war at all. Therefore, it decided to establish a puppet government to enforce the occupation and use it as a base force in this war. In other words they had some degree of control over Western Europe.
What happened to Nazi Germany was quite obvious to their government. In the course of the war they had made gains all over Germany. To put it bluntly, they had won many of their
If Bell is right about the war being a century-long war, it will almost certainly continue to unfold for three hundred and fifty years to come. This will mean that the First World War will come back to the forefront. Bell makes a big argument for this as it is the greatest humanitarian disaster of our time. His book is so comprehensive, it can be read in almost any language and is well worth buying. For those who are able to understand the details of why the German leadership decided it was ready to kill millions of citizens in just days (or weeks), Bell says this:
It is the first time that we’ve heard of a non-human entity which had the ability to literally kill hundreds of millions of men.
What? Why? What is going on with the mass of such a colossal, inhuman mass? What is going to happen to them once they are killed because of not knowing who the “other” is? Can those responsible?
In Bell’s time, the very existence of the Second World War was a question that had been asked by many thousands of people. What happened to the Germans after that war? It is quite possible the situation is the same for other wars around the world. In this book Bell lays out the historical background of how the Third World War unfolded. Although not every group in the Great Powers understood the “war was over” in the Third World War, it is clear that there was much misunderstanding on the part of some nations.
Before our first world war began with the Nazi Germany, the United States and the Soviet Union were fighting in their own wars. The United States was not an imperialist power and although many US military power was fighting in World War II this did not lead to any real peace. During the war both sides were fighting to expand their economic power and to preserve their interests over their political goals.
As we can see from our own government, the USSR had their own foreign policy. Its policy was largely to keep a firm hold on western Europe and not to interfere with their internal affairs. Since the Nazis wanted to dominate everything else around them they imposed the idea of the “peace dividend” on the countries they occupied.
In 1941, they were willing to go along with “free” Germany’s war with the USSR. However on the whole they did not see the issue differently. In 1941 they took on the German occupation as a result of their “war”, even though it was not a political operation.
This was because the Nazi war machine did not want the Soviets to have any war at all. Therefore, it decided to establish a puppet government to enforce the occupation and use it as a base force in this war. In other words they had some degree of control over Western Europe.
What happened to Nazi Germany was quite obvious to their government. In the course of the war they had made gains all over Germany. To put it bluntly, they had won many of their
If Bell is right about the war being a century-long war, it will almost certainly continue to unfold for three hundred and fifty years to come. This will mean that the First World War will come back to the forefront. Bell makes a big argument for this as it is the greatest humanitarian disaster of our time. His book is so comprehensive, it can be read in almost any language and is well worth buying. For those who are able to understand the details of why the German leadership decided it was ready to kill millions of citizens in just days (or weeks), Bell says this:
It is the first time that we’ve heard of a non-human entity which had the ability to literally kill hundreds of millions of men.
What? Why? What is going on with the mass of such a colossal, inhuman mass? What is going to happen to them once they are killed because of not knowing who the “other” is? Can those responsible?
In Bell’s time, the very existence of the Second World War was a question that had been asked by many thousands of people. What happened to the Germans after that war? It is quite possible the situation is the same for other wars around the world. In this book Bell lays out the historical background of how the Third World War unfolded. Although not every group in the Great Powers understood the “war was over” in the Third World War, it is clear that there was much misunderstanding on the part of some nations.
Before our first world war began with the Nazi Germany, the United States and the Soviet Union were fighting in their own wars. The United States was not an imperialist power and although many US military power was fighting in World War II this did not lead to any real peace. During the war both sides were fighting to expand their economic power and to preserve their interests over their political goals.
As we can see from our own government, the USSR had their own foreign policy. Its policy was largely to keep a firm hold on western Europe and not to interfere with their internal affairs. Since the Nazis wanted to dominate everything else around them they imposed the idea of the “peace dividend” on the countries they occupied.
In 1941, they were willing to go along with “free” Germany’s war with the USSR. However on the whole they did not see the issue differently. In 1941 they took on the German occupation as a result of their “war”, even though it was not a political operation.
This was because the Nazi war machine did not want the Soviets to have any war at all. Therefore, it decided to establish a puppet government to enforce the occupation and use it as a base force in this war. In other words they had some degree of control over Western Europe.
What happened to Nazi Germany was quite obvious to their government. In the course of the war they had made gains all over Germany. To put it bluntly, they had won many of their
Bell begins this read by illustrating the theory of the thirty years war. This, according to Bell, is the belief that the Second World War was a continuation of the First. Proof for which, is that after the First World War Europe was caught in a quicksand of tensions between states1. This was a result of the great cataclysm that the First World War created in Europe, both physical and psychological. Physically, the war completely changed the map of Eastern Europe. The outcome of which meant that over 19 million people were forced to live as national minorities in nine nation-states2. This made Europe unstable, as different nationalist movements rose up across the East. Psychologically, a growing movement of pacifists began to show its face in both Britain and especially France. As the numbers of dead and wounded kept growing people began asking “wozu?” -“whats it all for?”3 The result of these feelings led to the hope that another horrible war will not engulf Europe Ð- “never again”4. In response, France, whom was struck the worst in terms of population rates, revealed the harsh Versailles Treaty of 19195.
This treaty, which essentially drained Germany of its power to recover to its prewar state, created feelings of hate and mistrust among its populace. It forced the Germans to lose territory, limit its army and worst of all, accept the responsibility of starting the war6. This final part, known unofficially as the war-guilt clause, forced Germany to pay off repatriations that had no final amount stated7. This crippled the German economy, which now had to focus on paying off the allies rather than rebuilding itself and meant that prewar Europe could never be achieved. The reasoning behind this being that Germany was a crucial part of the European economy of 1914, and at its current state it couldnt reach normality8. According to Bell, the main problem with the Versailles Treaty was that: “Germany was beaten but not destroyed”9. This created an angry, but pacified, Germany; all that she needed was a dynamic leader.
A couple of years after the Treaty was imposed on Germany the allies began to see their mistake- it was much too harsh. They showed this when they offered Germany flexible ways of paying off her reparations10, allowing her to gain some territories back11, and letting her build up the German army unabated12. It was too late for appeasement however, as Germanys dynamic leader had already arrived Ð- Adolf Hitler. Hitler, whom preached ideologies of “lebensraum”, or living space, and of racial superiority, quickly rose up in popularity as his party was the single biggest in the Reichstag of 193213. Europe was in turmoil, and an angry Germany got it self an angrier leader, another European war was a certainty14. The only question Ð- When?
While a specific date for war wasnt given that early in Hitlers career, all of his actions made it come closer. When Hitler became FДјhrer in 1934 he, through the Enabling Act of 1933, took complete control over Germany. This resulted in his extreme ideology being applied to the German foreign policy. This ideology called for domination of all the weaker races in the world, for their only true masters were the Germans, or how Hitler liked to call them, the Aryans15. However, this “master race” was running out of sufficient area in which to live, according to Hitler, so he began his crusade for the “lebensraum”. The main target for this space was Eastern Europe Ð- The bread basket. While Hitler wasnt interested in conquering the mighty USSR from the start, he did for see an eventual war with her for her abundant resources16. Thus, the clash that the two countries had in 1941 was long coming, but not a surprise.
Living space then, was a necessary objective in Hitlers eyes, but in order to achieve this space he needed to develop Germanys army first. So he did. Between 1933 and 1939 the Treaty of Versailles was secretly avoided to massively increase the size of the German army, from 100,000 to 300,00017. The Luftwaffe, German air force, also rapidly increased and by 1940 it was the strongest among all the European powers. The German war machine was impressive, in just six years it went from being the weakest army to one of the strongest18. However, this created a vicious circle in terms of foreign policy for Germany: Hitler wanted living space, so he built up the army. However, in order to pay for this rapid rearmament, he had to conquer territories. Thus, Hitler made war profitable and a key part of the foreign policy of Germany19.
To sum up, Hitlers Germany lived on a balanced diet of economics and ideology. On the one hand, Hitlers ideology called for living space for his great Aryan race. However, on the other hand, economics were the backbone of building an army large enough to acquire it. This resulted in Hitler conquering many new lands for his cause. First