Death of a Nation by Stephen R A'Barrow

Author:Stephen R A'Barrow [A'Barrow, Stephen R]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781910298497
Publisher: Book Guild Publishing
Published: 2015-05-07T22:00:00+00:00

HITLER’S WAR

Leading German historians have been keen to warn us against focusing on ‘Hitlerism’, as a dangerous over-simplification. One leading exponent has argued, ‘The problem with the post-war view of Hitler is that the Messiah-Hitler’s positive attributes were turned overnight into negative ones, he became the alibi of the nation — evil incarnate — but the Übermensch remained.’(1) In other words, it was too easy for all the Mitläufer (fellow travellers) to pin their misdeeds on the Führer. This may be true, but that does not detract from the fact that Hitler’s actions and miscalculations were the primary forces in the commencement of the Second World War and all that flowed from it. He undoubtedly had a determination for armed conflict that was not matched by even his most ardent followers, let alone the majority of the German people. His desire for war in 1938 during the protracted crisis over Czechoslovakia not only unnerved his generals, a number of whom planned to attempt to assassinate him if it came to war,cxcvii but also raised the hackles of leading Nazis who wanted to build on the achievements of the regime, rather than risk all by war. Even the ever-loyal Joseph Goebbels commented in his diary:

Our campaign against Prague is beginning to tire the public a little. One cannot draw out a crisis for months on end… More importantly there is a growing sense of panic about war in the nation, people believe that war has become inevitable. No one is happy with that, it was the same in July 1914. We have to be more careful. Otherwise we will slide into a catastrophe that no one wants but will come all the same.(3)

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