Origins of the Second World War

Question 1

AJP Taylor’s Thirty Year Thesis

Answer 1

The Second World War was a repeat performance of the first. The first war explains the second and, in fact, caused it, in so far as one event causes another.

Question 2

Ferdinand Foch on the ToV

Answer 2

“This (TOV) is not a peace. This is an armistice for 20 years”

Question 3

Ralf Dahrendorf on Hitler’s foreign policy

Answer 3

Hitler’s foreign policy was unique and contrasted policies used by earlier governments.

Question 4

Fritz Fischer on the “German Problem”

Answer 4

German governments throughout the years 1871-1945 sought to make Germany the dominant power in Europe and expand into central and Eastern Europe.

Question 5

AJP Taylor on Hitler’s foreign Policy

Answer 5

Hitler did not make plans for world conquest or for anything else. He assumed that others would provide opportunities, and that he would seize them. (However, Tylor ignored the Hossbach memorandum as evidence)

Question 6

Richard Overy on Hitler’s foreign policy

Answer 6

Hossbach Memorandum, alongside the 4 year plan, provide evidence of a consistent plan to take Germany to war by the early 1940s to gain Lebensraum

Question 7

Churchill on appeasement

Answer 7

“There never was a war more easy to stop”

Question 8

AJP Taylor on Appeasement

Answer 8

The governments of Britain and France should be blamed equally as much as Hitler for the outbreak of the second world war

Question 9

Eric Hobsbawm on appeasement

Answer 9

Neither [Britain or France] had anything to gain from another war, and plenty to lose. The obvious logical policy was to negotiate with a revived Germany”