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Predicting War? The Place of War in Interpretations of Nazism, 1933–1939

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Abstract

In his highly regarded book of 1933, Calvin Hoover noted: ‘National Socialists believe that war is not only an inevitable part of the lives of nations and of man, but that it is a desirable institution for their development.’2 That a regime basing its ideology on the necessity and value of war could have come to power in Europe less than fifteen years after the most destructive war ever fought had ended was a conundrum that urgently required solving. This meant studying recent history. In doing so, numerous books were written, whose conclusions ranged from paeans to National Socialist pacifism to dire warnings about the threat, not just to the independence of this country or that, but to European civilization as such.

The event towards which we are moving is in all probability a second world war which, leaping from the Dvina, the Baltic, and the Danube right across the continent, will leave no country untouched and spare no state or group of states, no matter how ‘isolated’. Ernst Henri

[The diplomats] know that the Nazis have vast numbers of planes, that the Nazis have this and that — and knowing all this, and infinitely more, they sit around waiting for the war to start that will make the last holocaust look like child’s-play. John L. Spivak

Let Hitler mouth some of the well-worn tags of diplomacy, such as that ‘Germany loves her neighbours and desires peace — but peace with security’, and they heave a sigh of relief and murmur that, after all, Hitler is learning restraint and wisdom. How little restraint and wisdom such minds as his are able to absorb they will soon learn to their cost. George Sackst1

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Notes

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© 2003 Dan Stone

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Stone, D. (2003). Predicting War? The Place of War in Interpretations of Nazism, 1933–1939. In: Responses to Nazism in Britain, 1933–1939. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230505537_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230505537_3

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

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