I might sound revisionist here but I think germans did. :rolleyes:
Yes, it might sound a bit revisionist to some as they say that it was Japan that made the first move.
I know I’ve over simplified things and Im dealing with semantics, but…whoever made the first aggressive move started the war.
Now, his motives for doing so…that’s another story, of which Iam learning alot from y’all!!
Hi everyone,
When it comes to WW2 in europe the question who started it is pretty simple to answer: Nazi Germany or even more precisely Adolf Hitler, cause Imho the other idiots of that clique wouldn’t have unleashed a war on their own if someone wouldve taken hitler out of the picture. Guess when it came to leaders in the first half of the last century we could ultimately speak of very very bad luck for us germans.
But to limit history just to pivotal dates means to simplify and to really understand the whole complex issue that was europe in the first half of the 20th century goes way beyond what can be discussed in a forum. As some have already stated I believe too that WW2 was a sequel and direct consequence of WW1. The rise of National Socialism wouldn’t have taken place, if someone would’ve knocked some sense into the leaders of europe in 1914.
But even this war was a long term result of the defining european event during the 19th century after the defeat of Napoleon: the rise of germany as a unified nation under Bismarck which could be described as an earthquake to the powerstructure of europe. Foreign politics from all major powers in europe after 1871 was a backpack full of paranoia and egomanism from all sides germans, british, french etc. and in 1914 the shit finally hit the fan.
Conventional WWI analysis concentrates on Europe and the intricacies of European politics etc, as it does for WWII.
A significant but too often ignored part of the picture in both wars was Germany’s failure, through lack of national identity until Bismarck, to have the colonial possessions and treasures of the other main European powers. Everybody else had grabbed everything and there was nothing much left for the new boy on the block.
‘Lebensraum’ was just another name for colonial, or imperial, German expansion in WWII.
Similar problem for Japanese expansionism under the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, having arrived on the scene too late to get the geography that the European powers had grabbed all around it.
WWII was in part a competition between colonial powers and wannabe colonial powers, following on from failed earlier exercises including WWI.
The unintended brilliance of the whole exercise is that, contrary to the intentions of the have and have not colonialists, WWII destroyed colonialism.
Everybody lost a large part of what they were fighting for, even if took 20 or 30 years.
Except the USSR, which grabbed a big slab of western defence geography to reduce the risks of another Napoleon or Hitler landing on Moscow’s doorstep without an invitation.
And the US, which grabbed the Pacific just about to China and Russia’s shores, and slabs of Western Europe through surrogates. None of which were necessary to stop anyone landing on Washington’s doorstep without an invitation, geographically or historically.
Jup, that pretty much sums it up for me, too. Wannabees vs. Established Powers as in all the centuries before. Unfortunately it happened to coincide with the rapid development of technology and thus ended in the desasters we know.
Lot of good points in this thread 
One of the problems is: how much back in history you want to go - there will always a cause to everything, so, where do you (want to) stop?
I agree in the European theatre WWII was a continuation of WWI. If it had not been for the harsh sanctions dealt out to the german people after WWI Hitler would not have got to power.
I agree that sanctions were harsh, but it’s also worth remembering that once Hitler got power he spent wayyyyy more than those sanction payments were - lesson being: with strong leadership sanctions would have been payable.
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Well, it’s mostly the Romans.
If they hadn’t ploughed Carthage into the ground with salt, none of this would have happened.
Although several thousand years of Egyptian dominance probably pushed the Romans into it.
But I don’t want to let the Phonecians off the hook. Or the Etruscans.
Well, but with Hitler those money were indirectly benefiting the German public (until the coffins started to come in) and very large part of the population liked him much for roads and jobs!
This is kind of the other side of the coin.
I have heard that if Germany kept paying they would pay all out in about 1980.
Actually I think Hitler did very little to deserve the credit he got for the economic revival of germany. He basically cheated by taking jews and women out of the economy and recruiting a good portion of those unemployed into the Wehrmacht. The world economy was getting better again after the great depression, which was none of his doing as well. Germany was even back then a nation that depended highly on export.
I think much of his policy actually hurt the export of germany. Work programms were already on their way from previous governments. He actually cut them drastically, the only programm he kept going was the autobahn which I guess could be sold to him as usefull to the future war machine, despite the fact that just like in WW1 nearly all transport (high ninety percent rates) was done with the Reichsbahn.
As I see it any decent government would have achieved the same economic effects even without war preparations. Might have taken a bit longer, but not that much. A good government like later under Adenauer with Erhard as Secretary of Commerce might have even achieved much more.
Drake,
Taking women out of the economy? I am not an expert at all in either economy or pre-war Germany. But as I understand, if you take a woman out and put her husband in, then you do not improve anything except you get 2 stronger pair of hands.
I just can not see how taking women would make a large scale impact. In fact in the USA and UK there was an opposite trend - the war time actually moved women from houses to the working places. I know it is a bit different, but nonetheless similar process.
There were about 500.000 Jews of all ages in Germany in 1939. That is less than 0.6% of the German population in 1939 (85 million). So out of those half a million Jews there whould had been roughly 200.000 males of the working age.
The unemployment rate by 1932 was, as I know, about 30% of work force, i.e. about 9 million or so.
I guess even if you take all the 200.000 jews jobs and give it to Germans it would not make a remarkable impact.
They were no longer in the statistics, that’s what I wanted to say with “taking out of the economy”. And of course this was only one of several effects, as you correctly pointed out the total numbers of these two points alone would have been insignificant. Women were suppossed to stay at home and give birth to future aryan warriors in the nazi way of life. They even still refused to allow women in the workforce when the war had already started and it became obvious it would drag on much longer than expected in 1941, because hitler was concerned about the effects on the health of his “breeding machines”. The main effect was of course the major deficit spending which to a large extend went into the military build up. But that was anything but good economic politics. Hitler really believed he could simply ignore basic economic principles and build anything he wanted. I don’t want to go into details, but the nazi government “cheated” in many ways to generate money. There is plenty of material in the net and in the libraries if someone is really interested in the topic. Problem with the cheating was that it worked only within the Reichs borders. Germany was basically bankrupt in 1938, Inflation only prevented by fixing the prices. Inheriting Austria and the Czech territory with Goldreserves etc. bought about a year where this could still be hidden. It is a common theory that Hitler had to start the war in 1939 or at the latest in 1940 and start to cannibalize on the conquered economies to prevent an abysmal economic crash.
When did the seeds of war get sown. Britain and Germany used to be closer than everyone now imagines. Remember that British monarchs in the 19th century and beyond were essentially German. The population of England being Anglo Saxon was also greatly German in origin. They shared essentially the same values and ethics.
The link between the two was like cousins for a long time. The british even offered to transport German troops etc to China.
If this situation had continued into 1914, then the Uk would have done what it always tried to do and remain aloof from a European war.
What changed the british view of the German cousin is Kaiser Bill. He was somewhat jealous of the Empire and the RN. It can be assumed that the Brit attitude to germany changed when he challenged their supremacy at sea. Challenge the UK at sea and you make the Empire very nervous.
So I see the direct link from ww2 as the naval building race of 1900-1910. britain could not afford to be challenged at sea and Germany didnt need to challenge them. So the Brits feel insecure and jump into bed with their traditional enemies of Russia and France.
Britain tipped the scales in ww1, without them we could surmise another 1871.
SO without the naval race, we have no challenge to Briain, no naval race and no alliances with Germanies enemies. Germany wins the 1914-15 war, which does not go global and the world is very different today as there is no collapse in Germany, the royal family rules for the foreseeable future and France and russia give up a bit more territory.
Germany and the UK remain friends…
All for the sake of a few ships and some envy…
Of course the fault may be squarely put at the hands of the Royal Family in the UK for not accepting the Kaiser fully…
Who knows…
Some seeds of war:
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Sad joke of history is, that Wilhelm started the naval buildup, because he wanted a strong alliance with britain and thought they would only deem it worthwile if he had a strong fleet. He also liked the big toys of course.
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British balance of power politics clearly didn’t contribute to peace in europe over the centuries. I think it was not a bad idea as a starter, but the problem after germany was established was imho, that they tried to keep it exactly as strong as france, which is pretty stupid, considering the fact that there simply were much more germans. They should have tried with a factored balance of power to give germany the feeling of equality. Germans like the Japanese in Round 2 often felt taken in by the other european powers. They still could’ve turned the scale whenever they liked.
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French paranoia. They deliberately forged alliances all around germany and didn’t have the least impulse to get along.
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Why on earth did this idiotic serb shoot the crown prince. It was just the trigger, but maybe if it hadn’t triggered then it never would have. Maybe like with the cuba crisis, where a trigger could’ve occured anytime but it just didn’t happen.
Really? How come?
The european monarchs were all more or less related. What is today known as House of Windsor happened to be the House of Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha prior to the outbreak of hostilities in WW1.
The british king george V. was a cousin of wilhelm II., their grandma was queen victoria whose mother and husband were german. I would kick my little cousins ass, if he’d declare war on me, though he would never do that (as he knows he always loses, when we play chess, hehe) :P.
The british always had much more ties with germany than with france, they’re even called anglo-saxons ;).
The zar was also a cousin of Wilhelm.
If they had settled their disputes on the occasional grill parties as do other families, it would’ve saved us a whole lot of trouble.