WORLD WAR II

Introduction

I

Most people who lived through the Second World War see it in rather simplistic terms. Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo started the war; they attacked the democracies; we gave them better than we got; and Germany, Italy and Japan got exactly what they deserved. Thirty years after the war ended one can afford to take a less emotional look at the greatest war in all history and examine its causes, course and results with a more critical eye. In history there are few genuine villains and even fewer genuine heroes. Interest in the war has increased in recent years, especially among those to whom it is only a distant memory and to those who were born after the war was already part of history. Interest is growing too among historians, for only now are documents being made available which cast new light on the once seemingly simple story of the good guys defeating the bad guys.

It can no longer be argued that Hitler, and Hitler alone, caused the war in Europe, any more than it can be argucnl that an unprovoked Japan started the war in the Pacific. Both Germany and Japan were provoked by the Western powers. The Germany of the Weimar Republic was a creation of the First World War. Born of defeat and humiliation, it reluctantly commanded the support of its people as long as the economy of Germany maintained its equilibrium. At least twice during the early Weimar years the regime was almost toppled, and was propped up only with the help of those who were yearning for the return of the Kaiser and the stability of Wilhelmine Germany.

By 1933 the Weimar Republic was wholly discredited, blamed both for the Treaty of Versailles, which shackled German ambitions in Europe, and for the Great Depression, neither of which it could have done much to avoid. When Hitler threw off the constitutional bonds of the Weimar regime, he did so with the consent of most people in Germany. Hitler promised jobs and an end to the humiliating terms of Versailles. And Hitler provided jobs, less than five per cent of which had anything to do with arms manufacture or the build-up towards war. He also eradicated civil liberties and most political rights, and soon after his takeover began his active harassment of the Jews, most of whom began to leave Germany in great numbers. All this was viewed with a certain equanimity by the Western powers. Great Britain and France, and with a certain disinterest on the part of the United States. Britain and France did not begin to stir until Hitler’s troops re-occupied the Rhineland in March 1936, which was supposed to remain demilitarized according to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. At this stage France alone had the capability of moving into the Rhineland and if she had done so. Hitler would have withdrawn rather than face a confrontation. But France, without Britain’s support, lacked the will. From this moment on Hitler knew that the Western democracie. s could be pushed. While the newly constructed Luftwaffe and Condor Legion practised against the Spanish in their civil war at the invitation of General Franco, Hitler planned to rewrite the Treaty by force and threats.

As Britain rearmed, at a faster rate than

Germany, producing planes such as the Hurricane and Spitfire, France’s will to resist German threats crumbled during the years of the Popular Front. Only France believed in upholding the letter of the Treaty, and with her will shaken, Britain had no interest in supporting certain clauses in the Treaty which she no longer believed were just, or those which she had never really supported at all. It was the French in 1919 who insisted that a union or Anschluss between Austria and Germany be forbidden. When Hitler marched the Wehrmacht into Austria in March 1938, Britain and France complained but did nothing. The annexation of the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia was another matter. But Hitler argued that the people there were German-speaking and wanted union with Germany, which was true. Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister, had no intention of going to war for the Sudetenland, and the Munich Conference of September 1938 sealed the fate of the Sudeten Germans and Czechoslovakia itself. Britain was unready for war and needed more time to rearm. Although it is now known that if Britain and France had resisted and if Germany had been forced to invade, the German General Staff would have overthrown Hitler, for they knew that in 1938 Germany was equally unready for an all-out conflict. When Czechoslovakian integrity was abandoned, the Western powers relinquished all claim they might have had on influence in Eastern Europe for all time. From 1938 onwards it would be Russia and Germany who would decide the fate of Eastern Europe.

The occupation of the rump of Czecho-