The Second World War

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The Second World War

• History of Germany
• Lecture 12

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Schedule

• The Road to War German Foreign Policy 1933
  1939
• The Lessons of the Great War
• German Warfare on the Eastern Front
• Total War and Society
• Conclusion

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German Foreign Policy 1933-1937
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German Foreign Policy 1938-1939
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Hinton, Weimar Nazi Germany, p. 404
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Schedule

• The Road to War German Foreign Policy 1933
  1939
• The Lessons of the Great War
• German Warfare on the Eastern Front
• Total War and Society
• Conclusion

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Avoid a two-front war23 August 1939 Nazi Soviet
Non-Aggression Treaty
Molotov signs the German-Soviet non-aggression
pact. Behind him are Ribbentrop and Stalin.
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Text of the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression
Pact Article I. Both High Contracting Parties
obligate themselves to desist from any act of
violence, any aggressive action, and any attack
on each other, either individually or jointly
with other Powers. Article II. Should one of
the High Contracting Parties become the object of
belligerent action by a third Power, the other
High Contracting Party shall in no manner lend
its support to this third Power. Secret
Additional Protocol. Article I. In the event of
a territorial and political rearrangement in the
areas belonging to the Baltic States (Finland,
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), the northern
boundary of Lithuania shall represent the
boundary of the spheres of influence of Germany
and U.S.S.R. In this connection the interest of
Lithuania in the Vilna area is recognized by each
party. Article II. In the event of a territorial
and political rearrangement of the areas
belonging to the Polish state, the spheres of
influence of Germany and the U.S.S.R. shall be
bounded approximately by the line of the rivers
Narev, Vistula and San. The question of whether
the interests of both parties make desirable the
maintenance of an independent Polish States and
how such a state should be bounded can only be
definitely determined in the course of further
political developments. In any event both
Governments will resolve this question by means
of a friendly agreement. Article III. With
regard to Southeastern Europe attention is called
by the Soviet side to its interest in Bessarabia.
The German side declares its complete political
disinterestedness in these areas. Article IV.
This protocol shall be treated by both parties as
strictly secret. Moscow, August 23, 1939. For
the Government of the German Reich v. Ribbentrop
Plenipotentiary of the Government of the
U.S.S.R. V. Molotov
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Blitzkrieg strategy
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The Blitz
      THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST MICHAEL - 15
NOVEMBER 1940
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Prevent the collapse of the Home Front

• Food and consumption
• Leisure and entertainment
• Forced labour by Jews and inmates of
  concentration camps, Slavs, prisoners of war,
  Ostarbeiter
• Exploitation of occupied territories
• Intimidation and Terror
• Intensification of propaganda and Führer cult

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Schedule

• The Road to War German Foreign Policy 1933
  1939
• The Lessons of the Great War
• German Warfare on the Eastern Front
• Total War and Society
• Conclusion

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The acquisition of new soil for the settlement
of the excess population possesses an infinite
number of advantages, particularly if we turn
from the present to the future If land was
desired in Europe, it could be obtained by and
large only at the expense of Russia Germany will
either be a world power or there will be no
Germany... Hitler, Mein Kampf 1925
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17 October 1941, Hitler Monologue, Führer
Headquarters, in Madajczyk, Generalny, pp.
69-70.   The eastern region must lose the
character of the Asiatic steppe, it must be
Europeanized!  The two or three million people
we need for this program can be found quicker
than we think.  We will take them from Germany,
the Scandinavian lands, Western Europe, and
America.  Chances are that I will not live to see
this, but in twenty years twenty million people
will inhabit this territory.  In three hundred
years we will have a blossoming parkland of
extraordinary beauty!   As for the people
indigenous to the area, we will be sure to select
those of importance.  We will remove the
destructive Jews entirely. We will not enter
Russian cities, they must die out
completely.   There is only one task
Germanisation through the introduction of Germans
to the area and to treat the original
inhabitants like Indians. I feel myself to be
the executor of the will of History.  What people
think of me at present is all of no consequence. 
Never have I heard a German who has bread to eat
express concern that the ground where the grain
was grown had to be conquered by the sword.  We
eat Canadian wheat and never think of the
Indians.
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The Führer told me that the implementation of
German policy In Poland is a matter for the men
who are in charge of the General Government to
deal with themselves. He put it this way We must
liquidate those people whom we have discovered
from the leadership of Poland all those who
follow in their footsteps must be arrested and
then got rid of after an appropriate
period. Hans Frank, Governor General of the
General Government, in May 1940
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The Slavs are to work for us. In so far as we
dont need them, they may die. Therefore
compulsory vaccination and German health services
are unnecessary. The fertility of the Slavs is
undesirable. They may use contraceptives or
practise abortion, the more the better. Education
is dangerous. It is enough if they can count up
to one hundred. Every educated person is a future
enemy As for food, they wont get any more than
is absolutely necessary. We are the masters. We
come first. Letter from Martin Bormann, 1941
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Putzger
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We must be honest, decent, loyal and comradely
to members of our own blood, but no nobody else.
What happens to a Russian or to a Czech does not
interest me in the slightest. What the nations
can offer in the way of good blood of our type,
we will take, if necessary by kidnapping their
children and raising them here with us. Whether
nations live in prosperity or starve to death
interests me only in so far as we need them for
slaves for our Kultur otherwise, it is of no
interest to me. Himmler to SS officers at Posen
in 1943
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Oradour sur Glane 1944 the Waffen-SS killed in
Oradour 197 men, 240 women, 205 children
Men, massacred in Lidice, 10 June 1942. 192 men,
60 women, 88 children were killed
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Overy, Russias War
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ans Baumann
"If all the world lies in ruins,What the devil
do we care?We still will go marching on,For
to-day Germany belongs to usAnd to-morrow the
whole world."

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Diorama of the 900 day Siege of Leningrad,
641,000 people died
Overy, Russias war
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Schedule

• The Road to War German Foreign Policy 1933
  1939
• The Lessons of the Great War
• German Warfare on the Eastern Front
• Total War and Society
• Conclusion

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Fritz Todt, 1891-1942
Albert Speer, 1905-1981
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I ask you do you believe with the Führer and
with us in the final victory of the German
people? I ask you Are you determined to follow
the Führer through thick and hin in the struggle
for victory and to put up even with the heaviest
personal burdens?... I ask you Do you want total
war? Do you want it, if necessary, more total and
more radical than we can imagine it
today? Goebbels in the Berlin Sport Palace,
February 1943
Berlin, 1943 DHM, Berlin
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Dresden in ruins 14 February 1945
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Soviet soldiers raise the hammer and sickle
flag on the Reichstag in Berlin in May 1945
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Refugees1945DHM, Berlin
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Schedule

• The Road to War German Foreign Policy 1933
  1939
• The Lessons of the Great War
• German Warfare on the Eastern Front
• Total War and Society
• Conclusion

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The German Historikerstreit

• Ernst Nolte Vergangenheit, die nicht vergehen
  will (The Past That Does Not Want To Pass).
  Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, June 6, 1986
• Were the crimes of Nazi Germany uniquely evil in
  history?
• Were Nazism and Nazi crimes a reaction to
  Bolshevism, Red and Stalinist terror?
• Did German history follow a special path
  (Sonderweg) leading inevitably to Nazism?
• Jürgen Habermas Recent Apologetic Tendencies In
  Our History Die ZEIT, July 11, 1986)

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The myth of the saubere Wehrmacht

• The SS is responsible for the war crimes, the
  Wehrmacht has kept its honour
• Justification strategy after WWII
• Andreas Hillgruber Zweierlei Untergang (Two
  Kinds of Ruin)
• Contra Omer Bartov Hitlers Wehrmacht
• Contra Wehrmacht exhibition of the Institut for
  Sozialforschung, Hamburg http//www.verbrechen-der
  -wehrmacht.de
• Question Why did so many ordinary Germans as SS
  men, as policemen, as Wehrmacht soldiers
  participate in the crimes of the Nazi regime?