The Origins of the Second World War

I no longer recall who suggested that A.J.P. Taylor's short study of European politics between the Wars was a masterpiece.  Which is too bad because they were right and I should listen to more of their suggestions.  Taylor does a great job of explaining the tensions remaining after the Treaty of Versailles, and then tracing these lines of force forward as the complicated machinery of European politics played out over the following 20 years.  Since I've never studied the details of this history before, all I can say is that it is a fascinating story that seems well supported and well argued enough to perhaps be mostly true.  The book has apparently come in for a lot of criticism, and the reason for this is entirely predictable -- he doesn't blame the war on how evil Hitler was.  However, Hitler's inherent evilness is only a convincing historical explanation for people who just want to have a simple way to avoid considering the question.  For the rest of us, it's obvious that while Hitler's evilness may be a true and even necessary cause of the war, it is far from sufficient.  By explaining anything Germany might have done, it explains nothing about what it actually did.  

Instead, Taylor suggests that while Hitler transformed Germany domestically, his foreign policies were almost identical to all other German leaders since the end of WW1.  Since that war ended with German defeat and humiliation, but not a dismemberment of the German state, the goal of German leaders and the German people thereafter was to restore their greatness as the largest power in Europe.  And since Germany was the size of France and Britain combined, Taylor asserts that both those countries accepted that a restoration of German power was the inevitable outcome of the gradual dismantling of Versailles.  Naturally, they both also hoped that this could be delayed as long as possible, and ultimately carried out peacefully.  The shocking part of Taylor's thesis is that he suggests Hitler shared this latter goal.  Hitler had no intention of starting a great war with France and Britain in 1939.  He merely used the threat of force to hurry along the process of reunifying the German speaking people who had been separated off into Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Danzig (Gdańsk, Poland).  Germany had long sought this reunification, and the French and British had long assumed it would eventually happen despite whatever objections those small countries might have.  So while successive occupation of these three areas was indeed the direct trigger for the start of the war, Taylor argues that their reincorporation into Germany was not a sign of Hitler's endless desire to dominate the world.  Instead, Hitler's tactic all along was one of bluffing then waiting.  He threatened to use military force, and constantly exaggerated the capability of the German army (apparently much to the discomfort of his generals), but only as a means of pressuring the various European powers to acquiesce without a fight.  Unfortunately, gambling is a dangerous business.  Sometimes people call your bluff, and the rest is history.