Andreas Fritz Hillgruber (18 January 1925 – 8 May 1989) was a conservative German historian who was influential as a military and diplomatic historian who played a leading role in the Historikerstreit of the 1980s. In his controversial book Zweierlei Untergang , he wrote that historians should "identify" with the Wehrmacht fighting on the Eastern Front and asserted that there was no moral difference between Allied policies towards Germany in 1944 and 1945 and the genocide waged against the Jews. The British historian Richard J. Evans wrote that Hillgruber was a great historian whose once-sterling reputation was in ruins as a result of the Historikerstreit .
289-630: Hillgruber was born in Angerburg, Germany (present-day Wegorzewo , Poland ), near the then East Prussian city of Königsberg (present-day Kaliningrad , Russia ). Hillgruber's father lost his job as a teacher under Nazi rule . Hillgruber served in the German Army from 1943 to 1945 and spent the years 1945-48 as a POW in France. During World War II, Hillgruber fought on the Eastern Front, an experience that
578-630: A Free Socialist Republic was proclaimed at the Berlin Palace . The proclamation was issued by Karl Liebknecht , co-leader with Rosa Luxemburg of the communist Spartakusbund ( Spartacus League ), a group of a few hundred supporters of the Russian Revolution that had allied itself with the USPD in 1917. On the same day, in a move that was contrary to the constitution because only the Kaiser could appoint
867-557: A Holocaust denier ; but he argued that Germany as a great power had the potential to do much good for Europe. For Hillgruber, the tragedy was that this potential was never fulfilled. In his view, the problem did not lie with Germany's domination of Eastern and Central Europe, but rather with the particular way this domination was exercised by the Nazis. He argued that German-Russian, German-Polish, German-Czech, German-Hungarian and German-Jewish relations were traditionally friendly, and lamented that
1156-439: A Weltanschauung (world view) that emphasized an "either-or" outlook on international relations, Social Darwinism , a deterministic understanding of history, and dreams of worldwide expansionism. However, though Hillgruber paid attention to structural factors, in his opinion it was the actions of individuals that made the difference. As a member of the "Hitler Youth generation" and a World War II veteran, Hillgruber's major interest
1445-636: A border and commercial agreement addressing several open issues in January 1941. According to historian Robert Service , Joseph Stalin was convinced that the overall military strength of the Soviet Union was such that he had nothing to fear and anticipated an easy victory should Germany attack; moreover, Stalin believed that since the Germans were still fighting the British in the west, Hitler would be unlikely to open up
1734-577: A " Working Committee of German Associations " was founded with representatives of many groups considered "fit for good society". In 1919 the Weimar National Assembly established a parliamentary committee to inquire into the events that had led to the "outbreak, prolongation and loss of the First World War". Its results were of questionable value due to a lack of cooperation from the civil service and military and to increasing interference from
2023-473: A "grave injustice" with their attacks in Escape Into War? on those German historians like Fischer and Wehler critical of Imperial German foreign policy. Hillgruber expressed considerable disappointment with the republication of the once-banned work by Eckart Kehr , which Hillgruber dismissed as merely "trendy Marxisants " typical of the intellectual environment of the 1960s-70s. In a book review published in
2312-463: A "war guilt lie". In line with national conservative and bourgeois right-wing parties, they accused the governing parties of having contributed to Germany's humiliation by signing the treaty and of denying it the right to self-determination. The young republic was exposed from the beginning to attacks from both the extreme right and extreme left. The Left accused the Social Democrats of betraying
2601-502: A "war of annihilation" against the Soviet Union with the assistance of "several military leaders", even through it was quite clear to the military that such a war would violate all standards of civilized warfare and would be waged in the most inhumane fashion possible. Hillgruber argued that the decisive moment on the war on the Eastern Front was the Battle of Smolensk in July 1941, which was not quite
2890-597: A 12th-century Holy Roman Emperor and Crusader , put into action Nazi Germany's ideological goals of eradicating communism and conquering the western Soviet Union to repopulate it with Germans . The German Generalplan Ost aimed to use some of the conquered people as forced labour for the Axis war effort while acquiring the oil reserves of the Caucasus as well as the agricultural resources of various Soviet territories, including Ukraine and Byelorussia . Their ultimate goal
3179-487: A British blockade), then the British would abandon Poland, and thus Germany could destroy Poland without fear of causing a world war. At the same time, Hillgruber believed that in 1939 Stalin aimed to promote war between the capitalist West which would lead to the final collapse of the capitalist system, and would allow the Soviet Union to rule the world. Hillgruber used in support of this thesis Stalin's speech of 19 January 1925. If another world war would break out between
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#17328521697033468-463: A German military attaché and sent word to Zhou Enlai . The Chinese maintain the tipoff helped Stalin make preparations, though little exists to confirm the Soviets made any real changes upon receiving the intelligence. In early 1941, Stalin's own intelligence services and American intelligence gave regular and repeated warnings of an impending German attack. Soviet spy Richard Sorge also gave Stalin
3757-461: A German "renunciation" of naval and colonial claims , in exchange for British recognition of all of Europe as lying within the German sphere of influence, was based on an unviable notion that British interests were limited only to the naval spheres and spheres outside of Europe. Hillgruber noted that Britain was just as much a European as a world power, and would never accept so far-reaching a disruption of
4046-486: A PhD thesis depicting a counter-factual successful French offensive against the Siegfried Line. However, many historians have criticized both Hillgruber and Merglen for ignoring the realities of the time, and for using the advantage of historical hindsight too much in making these judgements. Historians have not and do not universally accept Hillgruber's Stufenplan concept. The British historian E.M. Robertson wrote that
4335-831: A Soviet consulate to be established in West Berlin, which Hillgruber claimed was an implicit admission of the Soviet claim that West Berlin was not part of the Federal Republic. As a right-wing historian, Hillgruber often felt uncomfortable with the increasing left-wing influence in German academia from the late 1960s onwards. In his 1974 textbook, Deutsche Geschichte 1945-1972 ( German History 1945-1972 ), Hillgruber complained that radicals influenced by "the forces of doctrinaire Marxism-Leninism", and leaning towards East Germany , were having too much influence in West German higher education. In
4624-470: A Soviet counteroffensive along with the remaining forces of the first echelon. But on 22 June 1941 the first echelon contained 171 divisions, numbering 2.6–2.9 million; and the second strategic echelon contained 57 divisions that were still mobilising, most of which were still understrength. The second echelon was undetected by German intelligence until days after the invasion commenced, in most cases only when German ground forces encountered them. At
4913-467: A Soviet invasion alleged to be planned for July 1941. Stahel noted that Hillgruber was the first historian to put forward an interpretation of Barbarossa that stressed ideology together with contingent elements that has been widely accepted. Stahel further noted that Hillgruber was the first historian to highlight the near total contempt felt by the Wehrmacht generals towards the Soviet Union, which resulted in
5202-420: A case for the traditional Rankean view of political history as the most important type history, that politics were decided by the leader of the nation as opposed to various social forces from below, and dismissed the claims of many younger West German historians who wished to understand political history as an extension of social history. Hillgruber and Hildebrand wrote: "The attitudes of Hitler and Stalin regarding
5491-618: A chancellor, Prince Max of Baden, at Ebert's request, transferred his powers as chancellor to him. In view of the mass support for more radical reforms among the workers' councils, a coalition government called the Council of the People's Deputies ( Rat der Volksbeauftragten ) was established, consisting of three MSPD and three USPD members. Led by Ebert for the MSPD and Hugo Haase for the USPD, it governed Germany from November 1918 to January 1919. Although
5780-564: A coalition government; Hitler's far-right Nazi Party held two out of ten cabinet seats. Von Papen, as Vice-Chancellor and Hindenburg's confidant, was to serve as the éminence grise who would keep Hitler under control; these intentions severely underestimated Hitler's political abilities. By the end of March 1933, the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act of 1933 were used in the perceived state of emergency to effectively grant
6069-414: A coherent and detailed foreign-policy programme aiming at nothing less than world conquest. Hillgruber stated that Hitler's foreign policy: "geographically was designed to span the globe; ideologically, too, the doctrine of universal anti-Semitism and Social Darwinism , fundamental to his programme, were intended to embrace the whole of mankind". According to Hillgruber, the conquest of the Soviet Union and
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#17328521697036358-600: A conflict which Hitler caused but did not really want. The other war - which Hitler both caused and most decidedly did want (as evidenced in part by Mein Kampf ) - was the German-Soviet one, a savage, merciless and brutal all-out struggle of racial and ideological extermination between German National Socialism and Soviet Communism . Hillgruber saw Hitler's foreign policy program was totally unrealistic and incapable of realization. Hillgruber argued that Hitler's assumption that
6647-594: A distinction between winning Germany a Grossmacht (great-power) position through Kontinentalimperium (Continental imperialism) and the goal of Weltmacht ("World Power") where Germany would embark on building a huge navy and win a massive colonial empire in Africa and Asia as the prelude to war with the United States. In addition, Hillgruber argued that Hitler did not wish to destroy the British Empire, as he believed that
6936-534: A figure greater than the number of Red Army soldiers killed in battle by then. German army commanders cast Jews as the major cause behind the " partisan struggle." The main guideline for German troops was "Where there's a partisan, there's a Jew, and where there's a Jew, there's a partisan" or "The partisan is where the Jew is." Many German troops viewed the war in Nazi terms and regarded their Soviet enemies as sub-human. After
7225-566: A front extending from the Arctic Ocean southward to the Black Sea , were all controlled by the OKH and organised into Army Norway , Army Group North , Army Group Centre and Army Group South , alongside three Luftflotten (air fleets, the air force equivalent of army groups) that supported the army groups: Luftflotte 1 for North, Luftflotte 2 for Centre and Luftflotte 4 for South. Army Norway
7514-471: A general strike. The putsch quickly failed due in large part to the refusal of the ministerial bureaucracy to obey Kapp's orders. The Reichswehr, however, proved itself to be unreliable. It adopted a wait-and-see attitude under General von Seeckt, the head of the Troop Office , who said that "Reichswehr do not fire on Reichswehr". Some among the working class did not limit themselves to passive resistance to
7803-565: A great deal of monetary and political stability was restored, and the republic enjoyed relative prosperity for the next five years; this period, sometimes known as the Golden Twenties , was characterised by significant cultural flourishing, social progress, and gradual improvement in foreign relations. Under the Locarno Treaties of 1925, Germany moved toward normalising relations with its neighbours, recognising most territorial changes under
8092-463: A key role in planning for Operation Barbarossa since both Jews and communists were considered equivalent enemies of the Nazi state. Nazi imperialist ambitions rejected the common humanity of both groups, declaring the supreme struggle for Lebensraum to be a Vernichtungskrieg ('war of annihilation'). On August 23, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact in Moscow known as
8381-541: A later date (Article 233). In the short term it was required to pay the equivalent of 20 billion gold marks in installments through April 1921 (Article 235). The most contentious article of the treaty, the so-called War Guilt Clause , did not use the word "guilt". It stated that Germany accepted full responsibility for all the loss and damage from a war that was imposed on the Allies by the aggression of Germany and its allies ( Article 231 ). The implications of Article 231 and
8670-488: A letter written by General Eduard Wagner , who was one of the officers involved in the abortive putsch of 1938, who wrote to his wife just before the invasion of Poland, "We believe we will make quick work of the Poles, and in truth, we are delighted at the prospect. That business must be cleared up" (emphasis in the original). Hillgruber noted that because of anti-Polish prejudices, in 1939 Fall Weiss served to unite Hitler and
8959-657: A major escalation of World War II, both geographically and with the Anglo-Soviet Agreement , which brought the USSR into the Allied coalition . The operation opened up the Eastern Front , in which more forces were committed than in any other theatre of war in human history. The area saw some of history's largest battles, most horrific atrocities , and highest casualties (for Soviet and Axis forces alike), all of which influenced
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9248-511: A massive German colonization effort was planned and the entire Russian people were to be reduced to slave status. In the 1970s and 1980s Hillgruber often attacked authors such as David Irving and Viktor Suvorov for putting forward the same arguments as he had done in 1954. Along the same lines, he criticized the American neo-Nazi historian David Hoggan , who argued that the British had provoked World War II in 1939. Hillgruber conceded that there
9537-504: A master plan in his foreign policy, albeit in a very improvised and flexible way. In a 1970 article, the German historian Martin Broszat wrote that Hitler's decision to invade the Soviet Union was not a "calculated plan to realize his Lebensraum ideas", but that he felt compelled to get out from waiting in the summer of 1940 and proceed to a decisive ending of the war". In response to Broszat, Hillgruber wrote: "In reality, Hitler's decision for
9826-551: A master plan. In Lukacs's opinion, Operation Barbarossa was primarily an anti-British move intended to force Britain to surrender by defeating the Soviet Union. Likewise, Lukacs argued that Hitler's statement to the League of Nations High Commissioner for Danzig, Carl Jacob Burckhardt , in August 1939, stating that "Everything I undertake is directed against Russia…", which Hillgruber cited as evidence of Hitler's ultimate anti-Soviet intentions,
10115-728: A memorandum to Hitler on the dangers of an invasion of the Soviet Union. They argued that the eastern territories ( Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic , the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic , the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic , the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic , and the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic ) would only end up as a further economic burden for Germany. It was further argued that
10404-561: A million Soviet Jews as part of the Holocaust . The failure of Operation Barbarossa reversed the fortunes of Nazi Germany. Operationally, German forces achieved significant victories and occupied some of the most important economic areas of the Soviet Union (mainly in Ukraine) and inflicted, as well as sustained, heavy casualties. The German offensive came to an end during the Battle of Moscow near
10693-541: A normal war that regrettably, the Nazis were not as skilled at waging as they should have been. Much of Hillgruber's early work reflected Schramm's influence. He spent the decade 1954-64 working as school teacher. In 1960 he married Karin Zieran, with whom he had three children. Hillgruber worked as a professor at the University of Marburg (1965–68), the University of Freiburg (1968–72) and the University of Cologne (1972–89). In
10982-567: A number far greater than the Germans had at their disposal. The Soviet Union had around 23,000 tanks available of which 14,700 were combat-ready. Around 11,000 tanks were in the western military districts that faced the German invasion force. Hitler later declared to some of his generals, "If I had known about the Russian tank strength in 1941 I would not have attacked". However, maintenance and readiness standards were very poor; ammunition and radios were in short supply, and many armoured units lacked
11271-437: A parliamentary system. The rebellion caused great fear among supporters of the monarchy and in the middle classes because of the soviet-style aspirations of the councils. To centrist and conservative citizens, the country looked to be on the verge of a communist revolution. By 7 November, the revolution had reached Munich , resulting in the flight of King Ludwig III of Bavaria . The MSPD decided to make use of their support at
11560-623: A peacetime army. Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles , the new army, the Reichswehr , was limited to 100,000 men and the Reichsmarine (navy), to 15,000. The treaty prohibited an air force, submarines, large warships and armoured vehicles. The official formation of the Reichswehr took place on 1 January 1921, after the limitations had been met. The soldiers of the Reichswehr took their oath to
11849-456: A potential Soviet entry into the pact . After two days of negotiations in Berlin from 12 to 14 November 1940, Ribbentrop presented a draft treaty for a Soviet entry into the Axis. However, Hitler had no intention of allowing the Soviet Union into the Axis and in an order stated, "Political conversations designed to clarify the attitude of Russia in the immediate future have been started. Regardless of
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12138-532: A premeditated war of aggression in 1914. Hillgruber believed that what had happened in 1914 was a "calculated risk" on the part of the Imperial German government that had gone horribly wrong. Germany had encouraged Austria-Hungary to attack Serbia in an attempt to break the informal Triple Entente alliance between the United Kingdom, France and Russia by provoking a crisis that would concern Russia only,
12427-550: A proper historical "understanding" of the 1939 pact that one had to study and understand in depth the personalities of Hitler and Stalin as instead of social forces in Germany and the Soviet Union. Hillgruber attacked the "many new 'revisionist' views amongst West German historians about an alleged 'polycracy' in the Third Reich", arguing for the traditional picture of Hitler as "the master of the Third Reich". Hillgruber and Hildebrand made
12716-504: A question about what was his fondest wish by replying "to live a life in Königsberg". East German , Soviet , Polish, Hungarian and Czechoslovak counterparts, denounced him as a German chauvinist, racist and imperialist, and accused him of glorifying the Drang nach Osten concept. However, Hillgruber was prepared to accept, albeit grudgingly, what he often called Germany's "Yalta frontiers" after
13005-653: A racial war between the disciplined Germans and the Jewish, Romani and Slavic Untermenschen . An 'order from the Führer' stated that the paramilitary SS Einsatzgruppen , which closely followed the Wehrmacht ' s advance, were to execute all Soviet functionaries who were "less valuable Asiatics, Gypsies and Jews." Six months into the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Einsatzgruppen had murdered more than 500,000 Soviet Jews,
13294-658: A result it was the leadership of the Reichswehr with its largely anti-democratic civil service personnel that, along with the Foreign Office, determined the portrayal of the war in the Weimar Republic. All in all, there was little objective and critical questioning of the causes of the war or of Germany's responsibility for it in academia, politics or the media during the Weimar period. The official view of history continued to follow
13583-428: A series of articles to mark the 40th anniversary of the German-Soviet non-aggression pact of 1939. The German historians' Gerd Ueberschär and Rolf-Dieter Müller commented that Hillgruber and Hildebrand "..developed a highly politicized and staunchly conservative interpretation of it [the non-aggression pact of 1939]". Ueberschär and Müller remarked that the articles that Hillgruber and Hildebrand wrote were not really about
13872-607: A short time - a reality. Hillgruber argued that the Weimar Republic was only a "bridge" between the expansionism of the German Empire and the even more radical expansionism of Nazi Germany , rather than a new era in German diplomacy. In his 1974 book Grossmachtpolitik und Militarismus im 20. Jahrhundert , Hillgruber took a revisionist view of the Treaty of Versailles . Far from being an intolerably harsh "Carthaginian peace" that crippled Germany, Hillgruber argued that Versailles
14161-541: A speech delivered by Adolf Hitler at a Nazi Party rally in Munich on 24 February 1929. A few weeks later, the term Weimarer Republik was first used again by Hitler in a newspaper article. Only during the 1930s did the term become mainstream, both within and outside Germany. According to historian Richard J. Evans : The continued use of the term 'German Empire', Deutsches Reich , by the Weimar Republic ... conjured up an image among educated Germans that resonated far beyond
14450-532: A study of relations between Germany and Romania from 1938 to 1944 with a focus on the personalities of Adolf Hitler , King Carol II and Marshal Ion Antonescu , Hillgruber argued for the fundamental normality of German foreign policy, with the foreign policy of the Reich being no different from that of any other power. Because of the importance of Romania's oil without which the Wehrmacht would have been unable to fight after June 1941, Hillgruber paid special attention to
14739-626: A thesis that goals such as the Remilitarization of the Rhineland and the Anschluss with Austria, which had been the end-goals during the Weimar period, were just the beginning for the Nazis. Unlike the Weimar government, the Nazis' desire to re-militarize was only a step on the road to the complete domination of all Europe, and eventual world domination . In a 1978 essay "Das Russlandbild der führenden deutschen Militärs" ("The Picture of Russia held by
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#173285216970315028-616: A two-front war and subsequently delayed the reconstruction of defensive fortifications in the border regions. When German soldiers swam across the Bug River to warn the Red Army of an impending attack, they were shot as enemy agents. Some historians believe that Stalin, despite providing an amicable front to Hitler, did not wish to remain allies with Germany. Rather, Stalin might have had intentions to break off from Germany and proceed with his own campaign against Germany to be followed by one against
15317-467: A very narrow military view. Hillgruber argued that because these assumptions were shared by the entire military elite, Hitler was able to push through with a "war of annihilation" that would be waged in the most inhumane fashion possible with the complicity of "several military leaders," even though it was quite clear that this would be in violation of all accepted norms of warfare. Even so, in autumn 1940, some high-ranking German military officials drafted
15606-469: A war ending in making Germany the world's greatest power. Hillgruber argued that Ludendorff's foreign policy, with its demand for extensive territorial gains together with plans for obtaining lebensraum in Eastern Europe through a program of ethnic cleansing and German colonization, was in many ways the prototype of National Socialist foreign policy. Hillgruber argued that the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and
15895-527: A war in the East came in July 1940 at a time when he was convinced of the possibility of reaching an arrangement with Britain". Later on, Broszat was to attack the book that first made Hillgruber's reputation as a historian, Hitler, König Carol und Marschall Antonescu dealing with relations between Germany and Romania from 1938 to 1944., Broszat offered up harsh criticism of Hillgruber's book on German-Romanian relations, arguing that Hillgruber had seriously misunderstood
16184-577: A war of Weltanschauungen ['worldviews']... totally a people's war, a racial war ". On 23 November, once World War II had already started, Hitler declared that "racial war has broken out and this war shall determine who shall govern Europe, and with it, the world". The racial policy of Nazi Germany portrayed the Soviet Union (and all of Eastern Europe) as populated by non-Aryan Untermenschen ('sub-humans'), ruled by Jewish Bolshevik conspirators. Hitler claimed in Mein Kampf that Germany's destiny
16473-458: A war of total extermination against what Hitler saw as "Judaeo-Bolshevik" system in the Soviet Union. Hillgruber was noteworthy as the first historian to argue for the connection between Operation Barbarossa and the decision to begin the Holocaust. In Hillgruber's opinion, for Hitler from about 1924 onwards: Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic , officially known as the German Reich ,
16762-410: A war with Poland, and the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (in his view) was meant to pressure the Poles into making concessions instead of being (as Hillgruber claimed) a plan for partitioning Poland. The Hungarian-American historian John Lukacs criticized Hillgruber's portrayal of Hitler following a Stufenplan , arguing that there was much opportunism and contingency in Hitler's strategy, with little sign of
17051-419: Is so called because the Weimar National Assembly that adopted its constitution met in Weimar from 6 February to 11 August 1919, but the name only became mainstream after 1933. Even though the National Assembly chose to retain the old name Deutsches Reich (Art. 1 of the Constitution), hardly anyone used it during the Weimar period, and no single name for the new state gained widespread acceptance. To
17340-405: The Einsatzgruppen were assigned to the Wehrmacht ' s units, which provided them with supplies such as gasoline and food, they were controlled by the RSHA. The official plan for Barbarossa assumed that the army groups would be able to advance freely to their primary objectives simultaneously, without spreading thin, once they had won the border battles and destroyed the Red Army's forces in
17629-605: The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on 18 June 1979, Hillgruber for the most part offered a highly unfavorable judgment of David Irving 's work. Despite his criticism, Hillgruber ended his review with the comment that Irving's work "amounts to an indubitable and in no way small merit of Irving". The American historian John Lukacs thought it a sign of Hillgruber's general right-wing biases that he attached no such qualifying words of praise like those he gave to Irving during any of his attacks on left-wing historians like Eberhard Jäckel and Hans-Ulrich Wehler . As part of his criticism of
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#173285216970317918-409: The 1848 German revolutions was named as the national flag in the Weimar Constitution . It was abolished after the entry into force of the Enabling Act of 1933, when the Nazi Party gained total power, in favour of two co-official national flags: the old black-white-red imperial tricolour and the flag of the Nazi Party . From 1935, the Nazi flag with the symbol offset became the sole national flag of
18207-417: The Allies , and the proclamation of the Weimar Republic on 9 November 1918. In its initial years, grave problems beset the Republic, such as hyperinflation and political extremism , including political murders and two attempted seizures of power by contending paramilitaries ; internationally, it suffered isolation, reduced diplomatic standing and contentious relationships with the great powers. By 1924,
18496-459: The Black Reichswehr , a secret reserve networked within the Reichswehr and organised as labour battalions ( Arbeitskommandos ) to circumvent the Treaty of Versailles' 100,000 man limit on the German army. The Black Reichswehr was never involved in direct military action and was dissolved in 1923 after a group of its members attempted to overthrow the government in the Küstrin Putsch . The Reichswehr also developed far-reaching cooperation with
18785-419: The Donbas second, Moscow third;" but he consistently emphasized the destruction of the Red Army over the achievement of specific terrain objectives. Hitler believed Moscow to be of "no great importance" in the defeat of the Soviet Union and instead believed victory would come with the destruction of the Red Army west of the capital, especially west of the Western Dvina and Dnieper rivers, and this pervaded
19074-488: The First Moroccan Crisis in 1905 ended in failure, and that thereafter Germany was forced to retreat into a defensive posture in the "bastion" of Central Europe with Austria-Hungary forming the crucial "land bridge" to the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East. To some extent he agreed with Fritz Fischer 's assessment that the differences between Imperial , Weimar and Nazi foreign policy were of degree rather than kind. Moreover, he accepted Fischer's argument that Germany
19363-441: The German High Command began planning an invasion of the Soviet Union in July 1940 (under the code-name Operation Otto ). Over the course of the operation, over 3.8 million personnel of the Axis powers—the largest invasion force in the history of warfare —invaded the western Soviet Union, along a 2,900-kilometer (1,800 mi) front, with 600,000 motor vehicles and over 600,000 horses for non-combat operations. The offensive marked
19652-429: The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa —who drowned in Asia Minor while leading the Third Crusade —was not dead but asleep, along with his knights, in a cave in the Kyffhäuser mountains in Thuringia , and would awaken in the hour of Germany's greatest need and restore the nation to its former glory. Originally, the invasion of the Soviet Union was codenamed Operation Otto (alluding to Holy Roman Emperor Otto
19941-518: The Iron Guard . Thus Broszat argued that German policy towards Romania between September 1940-January 1941 was largely incoherent, with different factions in the German government supporting different factions in the Romanian government, which explains how in January 1941 the SS supported the Iron Guard's coup attempt against General Antonescu while the Wehrmacht and the Auswärtiges Amt supported Antonescu. Broszat maintained that Hillgruber's picture of German foreign policy being run by Hitler at every turn
20230-405: The Kiel mutiny on 3 November. Sailors, soldiers and workers began electing workers' and soldiers' councils ( Arbeiter- und Soldatenräte ) modelled after the soviets of the 1917 Russian Revolution . The revolution spread throughout Germany, and participants seized military and civil power in individual cities. The power takeovers were achieved everywhere without loss of life. At the time,
20519-441: The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact . A secret protocol to the pact outlined an agreement between Germany and the Soviet Union on the division of the eastern European border states between their respective " spheres of influence ," Soviet Union and Germany would partition Poland in the event of an invasion by Germany, and the Soviets would be allowed to overrun Finland , Estonia , Latvia and the region of Bessarabia . On 23 August 1939
20808-481: The November Revolution of 1918, was most unwilling to see any fall in working-class living-standards out of the fear that it might provoke another November Revolution. According to Mason, by 1939, the "overheating" of the German economy caused by rearmament, the failure of various rearmament plans produced by the shortages of skilled workers, industrial unrest caused by the breakdown of German social policies, and
21097-628: The Reich' s relations with Romania by focusing only on the Auswärtiges Amt and upon Hitler. Broszat argued that there were two factions competing with each in regard to relations with Romania, namely the "old guard" which comprised the traditional German elites in the Wehrmacht and the Auswärtiges Amt who supported General Ion Antonescu and the "new guard" in the SS and the NSDAP who supported Horia Sima of
21386-618: The Reichswehr from the control of the Reichstag . Under Seeckt the Reichswehr developed into what many historians consider a "state within the state". During the 1920 Kapp Putsch , Seeckt refused to deploy the Reichswehr against the Freikorps involved in the putsch but immediately afterwards had the Ruhr Red Army brutally suppressed during the Ruhr uprising . In 1921 the Reichswehr organized
21675-491: The Schlieffen Plan to be activated, thus leading to a German attack on France. In Hillgruber's opinion, the "calculated risk" gambit was a highly dangerous and foolish one, as Bethmann Hollweg and the rest of the German leadership gratuitously failed to anticipate what the most likely Russian reaction to an Austro-Serbian war would be, and that therefore the German leadership of 1914 was extremely irresponsible in trying to use
21964-716: The Silesian Uprisings and the Greater Poland uprising in the German Province of Posen , which became part of the Second Polish Republic under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. In the four years following the First World War, the situation of most German civilians remained dire. The post-war economic crisis was a result of lost pre-war industrial exports, the loss of imported raw materials and foodstuffs due to
22253-618: The Soviet Union , especially the fighting power of the Red Army , was a dangerous illusion. Hillgruber argued that the lack of British interest in Hitler's proposed anti-Soviet alliance temporarily derailed Hitler's foreign-policy programme in the late 1930s, and led to the ideas of the Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop , whose anti-British foreign policy programme Hillgruber called the "very opposite" of Hitler's taking precedence in
22542-631: The Spartacus League and the left wing of the USPD. In January, the Spartacus League, in what was known as the Spartacist uprising , took advantage of a large strike in Berlin and attempted to establish a communist government. The uprising was put down by paramilitary Freikorps units consisting of volunteer soldiers. Following bloody street fights, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were summarily killed after their arrests on 15 January. With
22831-586: The Stufenplan concept seemed to explain much of Hitler's foreign policy, but noted that Hitler himself never spoke of having any "stages" or even a plan at all. Moreover, Robertson commented that Hitler's use of the phrase "world power or collapse" in Mein Kampf is ambiguous and can be interpreted in several different ways. However, Robertson went on to note in support of the Stufenplan thesis several speeches Hitler made to his senior officers in late 1938-early 1939, where Hitler did claim to be working out some sort of
23120-488: The Tirpitz Plan spearheaded by Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz with his Riskflotte (Risk Fleet) concept of creating a sufficiently powerful fleet that Britain could never risk war with, had the opposite effect from the one intended on Britain. Instead of leading British leaders to conclude that they could never risk a war with Germany, and therefore must ally themselves with the Reich , the build-up in German naval power led to
23409-788: The Weimar Constitution . The commander-in-chief was the Reich president , while the Reich minister of the armed forces exercised command authority. Military right of command ( Kommandogewalt ) was in the hands of the OHL. The resulting dualism between civilian power and military command was to become a heavy burden on the Republic. Whereas Reichswehr Minister Otto Gessler was content with limited political and administrative duties during his tenure (1920–1928), Colonel General Hans von Seeckt , Chief of Army Command from 1920 to 1926, succeeded in largely removing
23698-612: The Winter War against Finland in 1939–40 also convinced Hitler of a quick victory within a few months. Neither Hitler nor the General Staff anticipated a long campaign lasting into the winter and therefore, adequate preparations such as the distribution of warm clothing and winterisation of important military equipment like tanks and artillery, were not made. Further to Hitler's Directive, Göring's Green Folder , issued in March 1941, laid out
23987-466: The Yalta Conference of 1945. What he was not prepared to accept was the partition of Germany. He often complained that the West German government was not doing enough to re-unite Germany. In a 1981 speech, he called on Bonn to create a new German nationalism based on respect for human rights that would ensure that future generations would not lose sight of the dream of re-unification. Hillgruber
24276-503: The myth of the "clean Wehrmacht, " upholding its honor in the face of Hitler's fanaticism, the historian Jürgen Förster notes that "In fact, the military commanders were caught up in the ideological character of the conflict, and involved in its implementation as willing participants". Before and during the invasion of the Soviet Union, German troops were indoctrinated with anti-Bolshevik , anti-Semitic and anti-Slavic ideology via movies, radio, lectures, books, and leaflets. Likening
24565-503: The "Globalists" (who argued that Hitler wanted to conquer the entire world), Hillgruber definitely belonged in the latter camp. As a globalist historian, Hillgruber argued that Hitler was always intent upon a war with the Soviet Union and he maintained that Hitler's interest in Admiral Erich Raeder 's "Mediterranean plan" in the fall of 1940 as an alternative to Barbarossa was half-hearted at best, and that right from June 1940 Hitler
24854-497: The "Mediterranean plan" as part of the preparations for Barbarossa by defeating Britain first. Hillgruber regarded Hitler as a fanatical ideologue with a firmly fixed programme, and criticized the view of him as a grasping opportunist with no real beliefs other than the pursuit of power - a thesis promoted by such British historians as A.J.P. Taylor and Alan Bullock , and which Hillgruber thought profoundly shallow and facile. Moreover, he categorically rejected Taylor's contention that
25143-566: The "Strike South" fraction in the Japanese government gain ascendency over the "Strike North" fraction. From the 1960s on, Hillgruber was regarded by other historians as one of the world's foremost authorities on German military-diplomatic history, his theory about Hitler having a Stufenplan (stage-by-stage plan) being especially influential. In 1989 the American historian Jerry Z. Muller called Hillgruber "the most distinguished German diplomatic historian of his generation". In 2002, in an assessment of
25432-491: The "War-in-Sight" crisis that Bismarck followed a conservative foreign policy aimed at upholding the international status quo which was so favourable to Germany. Hillgruber argued that the accession of Wilhelm II in 1888 marked a watershed in German diplomatic history as Wilhelm was not content with "semi-hegemony" in Europe, and instead sought a power of Weltpolitik intended to give Germany "world power status". To start with,
25721-550: The "calculated risk" of an Austro-Serbian war as a diplomatic device to break the Triple Entente. The German historian Annelise Thimme commented that Hillgruber's "calculated risk" theory to explain World War I was little more than putting "new wine into old wine skins". Thimme noted that Hillgruber relied almost entirely upon the diary of Bethmann Hollweg's aide and friend, Kurt Riezler , to support his "calculated risk" thesis, which
26010-404: The "ground-laying works of Andreas Hillgruber... suggested the view for the continuities of German policy from the late Wilhelminian period up to the capitulation". Hillgruber argued that in the 1870s, Germany had won a position of "semi-hegemony" in Europe, and that Otto von Bismarck had three options for preserving that "semi-hegemony": Hillgruber argued that the "war-in-sight crisis" of 1875
26299-557: The "outbreak" of World War I in 1914, in which all of the Great Powers were equally at fault, and the "unleashing" of World War II in 1939, in which Germany was exclusively responsible, was no longer acceptable. Hillgruber commented that Fischer had established that Germany was indeed responsible for both world wars, and Hofer's formula had to be disregarded by all serious historians. Having conceded that much to Fischer, Hillgruber went on to challenge Fischer's argument that Germany had started
26588-506: The "world power status" that had been sought unsuccessfully in the last war. The total war ideology of the Reichswehr and the attendant demand that Germany be transformed into a militaristic, totalitarian Wehrstaat (defense state) went a long way to explaining why almost the entire Reichswehr welcomed the coming of the National Socialist dictatorship in 1933. Despite the example provided by Ludendorff and his circle, for Hillgruber,
26877-502: The 1919 Treaty of Versailles and committing never to go to war. The following year, it joined the League of Nations , which marked its reintegration into the international community. Nevertheless, especially on the political right, there remained strong and widespread resentment against the treaty and those who had signed and supported it. The Great Depression of October 1929 severely impacted Germany's tenuous progress; high unemployment and subsequent social and political unrest led to
27166-469: The 1970s, Hillgruber, together with his close associate Klaus Hildebrand , was involved in a very acrimonious debate with Hans-Ulrich Wehler over the merits of the Primat der Aussenpolitik ("primacy of foreign politics") and Primat der Innenpolitik ("primacy of domestic politics") schools. Hillgruber and Hildebrand made a case for the traditional Primat der Aussenpolitik approach to diplomatic history with
27455-734: The 22 June start date was sufficient for the German offensive to reach Moscow by September. Antony Beevor wrote in 2012 about the delay caused by German attacks in the Balkans that "most [historians] accept that it made little difference" to the eventual outcome of Barbarossa. The Germans deployed one independent regiment, one separate motorised training brigade and 153 divisions for Barbarossa, which included 104 infantry, 19 panzer and 15 motorised infantry divisions in three army groups, nine security divisions to operate in conquered territories, four divisions in Finland and two divisions as reserve under
27744-536: The Anglo-German naval race of the early 20th century, and Britain aligning herself against Germany. Hillgruber maintained that influenced by Friedrich von Holstein , Wilhelm came to believe in the inevitability of a "race war" in Eastern Europe between the "Teutonic race" and "Slavic race", which ultimately came to be a self-fulfilling prophecy . Hillgruber argued that Wilhelm's policy of Weltpolitik (World Politics) which he launched with great fanfare in 1897 had with
28033-626: The Balkan front after Bulgaria's withdrawal from the war. They were instead largely determined by the fact that German troops, as "victors" held vast strategically and economically important areas of Russia. At the moment of the November 1918 ceasefire in the West, newspaper maps of the military situation showed German troops in Finland, holding a line from the Finnish fjords near Narva, down through Pskov-Orsha-Mogilev and
28322-420: The British chose to "guarantee" Poland with the aim of "containing" Germany. Hillgruber maintained that both Hitler and Ribbentrop believed in 1939 that Germany could destroy Poland in a short, limited war that would not cause a world war. Faced with clear signs that the British were attempting to create a "peace front" comprising Britain, France, Poland, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Romania, Greece and Turkey that
28611-542: The End of the Weimar Republic and in the 'Third Reich'"), Eberhard Kolb noted that: Referring to M. Geyer's research, which had not then been published, Hillgruber pointed out from the mid-1920s onwards the Army leaders had developed and propagated new social conceptions of a militarist kind, tending towards a fusion of the military and civilian sectors and ultimately a totalitarian military state ( Wehrstaat ). Hillgruber wrote that after
28900-499: The German war effort by circumventing the British blockade of Germany . Despite the parties' ostensibly cordial relations, each side was highly suspicious of the other's intentions. For instance, the Soviet invasion of Bukovina in June 1940 went beyond their sphere of influence as agreed with Germany. After Germany entered the Axis Pact with Japan and Italy, it began negotiations about
29189-467: The German attack on Poland on 1 September 1939. In his 1980 monograph The Foreign Policy of Hitler's Germany Starting World War II 1937-1939 , Weinberg noted that about the question of the war's origins that "my view is somewhat different" from Hillgruber's. In his 1981 book World in the Balance , Weinberg stated that "Hillgruber's interpretation is not, however, followed here". Hillgruber's area of expertise
29478-665: The German campaign in France, in late 1940 they began to reorganise most of their armoured assets back into mechanised corps with a target strength of 1,031 tanks each. But these large armoured formations were unwieldy, and moreover they were spread out in scattered garrisons, with their subordinate divisions up to 100 kilometres (62 miles) apart. The reorganisation was still in progress and incomplete when Barbarossa commenced. Soviet tank units were rarely well equipped, and they lacked training and logistical support. Units were sent into combat with no arrangements in place for refuelling, ammunition resupply, or personnel replacement. Often, after
29767-622: The German decision not to renew the Reinsurance Treaty in 1890 marked the breakdown of the once warm relations between the Hohenzollerns and the Romanovs going back to the 18th century. Instead, Wilhelm preferred a policy of Anglo-German alliance, which he attempted to achieve through a mixture of bribery and blackmail in the form of a vastly expanded German navy. The huge build-up in the Navy known as
30056-551: The German historical profession, and called for conservative historians to make a sustained offensive to defeat Wehler and his "cultural revolutionaries" for the sake of saving history as a profession in Germany. Likewise, despite his partial agreement with Fischer about the origins of the First World War, Hillgruber frequently fought against Fischer's interpretation of the German Empire as a uniquely aggressive power threatening its neighbours throughout its existence. In 1990, Hillgruber
30345-478: The German invasion of Poland was an "accident" precipitated by diplomatic blunders. Hillgruber argued adamantly that the German invasion of Poland was a war of aggression caused by Hitler's ideological belief in war and the need for Lebensraum (living space). World War II , for Hillgruber, really consisted of two wars. One was an europäischer Normalkrieg ("normal European war") between the Western powers and Germany,
30634-477: The German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, had been a "preventive war", forced on Hitler to prevent an imminent Soviet attack on Germany. So effectively did Weinberg and Rothfels demolish Hillgruber's arguments that he repudiated his previous views. Thereafter, he maintained that Operation Barbarossa had been prompted solely by Hitler's ideological belief in the need for Lebensraum (living space) in Russia, where
30923-481: The German military in a way that Fall Grün had failed to do in 1938. Hillgruber argued that Hitler's decision to declare war on the United States before he had defeated the Soviet Union was due to Hitler's belief that the United States might quickly defeat Japan, and hence it was better to engage the Americans while they were still involved in a two-front war. Likewise, Hillgruber argued that Hitler's decision to take on
31212-675: The German officer class. A rift developed between the MSPD and USPD after Ebert called upon the OHL for troops to put down a mutiny by a leftist military unit on 23/24 December 1918 in which members of the Volksmarinedivision (People's Navy Division) captured the city's garrison commander Otto Wels of the MSPD and occupied the Reich Chancellery where the Council of the People's Deputies had its offices. The ensuing street fighting left 11 Volksmarinedivision members and 56 members of
31501-522: The Germanic nation" would fight America for world supremacy. Hillgruber wrote that: These enormous schemes, and particularly their connection with racist ideology, were, to be sure, the program of a single individual. But in the case of such prominent provisions as the revision of the Versailles Treaty and the creation of a "Greater Germany", they overlapped with the aims of the old German leadership and
31790-454: The Germans were fighting for "the defence of European culture against Moscovite–Asiatic inundation, and the repulse of Jewish Bolshevism ... No adherents of the present Russian-Bolshevik system are to be spared." Walther von Brauchitsch also told his subordinates that troops should view the war as a "struggle between two different races and [should] act with the necessary severity." Racial motivations were central to Nazi ideology and played
32079-496: The Germans were unprepared. Following the heavy losses and logistical strain of Barbarossa, the Wehrmacht ' s diminished forces could no longer attack along the entire Eastern Front, and subsequent operations to retake the initiative and drive deep into Soviet territory—such as Case Blue in 1942 and Operation Citadel in 1943—were weaker and eventually failed, which resulted in the Wehrmacht ' s defeat. These Soviet victories ended Germany's territorial expansion and presaged
32368-563: The Great 's expansive campaigns in Eastern Europe), but Hitler had the name changed to Operation Barbarossa in December 1940. Hitler had in July 1937 praised Barbarossa as the emperor who first expressed Germanic cultural ideas and carried them to the outside world through his imperial mission. For Hitler, the name Barbarossa signified his belief that the conquest of the Soviet Union would usher in
32657-604: The Hillgruber-Hildebrand articles had as its subtitle "Parallels with Today?" and that article proceeded to answer that question in the affirmative, with Hillgruber and Hildebrand claiming that there was no real difference between the policies of the Soviet Union in 1939 and 1979. Ueberschär and Müller wrote that the article was really about the world of 1979 as opposed to the world of 1939. The Hillgruber-Hildebrad articles were just as conservative intellectually as they were politically. Hillgruber and Hildebrand argued that reach
32946-512: The Iron Guard who were ideologically closer to him, but were also incompetent. One of Hillgruber's leading critics, the British Marxist historian Timothy Mason , accepted the Stufenplan thesis, but argued that an economic crisis derailed the Stufenplan in the late 1930s. Mason argued that "Nazi Germany was always bent at some time upon a major war of expansion", but the timing of such a war
33235-521: The Kaiser that Germany needed to pursue an armistice and that the majority parties in the Reichstag, not the OHL, had to take responsibility for it. Although in retreat, the German armies were still on French and Belgian territory when the war ended on 11 November. Ludendorf and Paul von Hindenburg then began proclaiming that it was the defeatism of the civilian population – especially the socialists – that had made defeat inevitable. The stab-in-the-back myth
33524-517: The Kapp Putsch. Especially in the Ruhr , where dissatisfaction with the lack of nationalisation of key industries was particularly high, councils were formed that sought to seize local power. In the Ruhr uprising , civil war-like fighting broke when the Ruhr Red Army , made up of some 50,000 armed workers, mostly adherents of the KPD and USPD, used the disruption caused by the general strike to take control of
33813-503: The Kiel barracks. The sailors and soldiers welcomed him, and he was able to defuse the situation. On 9 November 1918, the German Republic was proclaimed by MSPD member Philipp Scheidemann at the Reichstag building in Berlin, angering Friedrich Ebert , the leader of the MSPD, who thought that the question of monarchy or republic should be answered by a national assembly. Two hours later,
34102-510: The Leadership of the German Military"), Hillgruber examined the views about the Soviet Union held by the German military elite in the period June 1940 to June 1941. According to Hillgruber, the following assumptions were shared by all of Germany's leading generals: Hillgruber argued that these assumptions about the Soviet Union shared by the entire military elite allowed Hitler to push through
34391-792: The Left and supporters of the former empire led to political violence and extremism . The young republic found itself in a nearly constant economic and political crisis until 1924. The Treaty of Versailles ended the state of war between Germany and most of the Allied powers and set the conditions for peace. It was signed 28 June 1919 and can be divided into four main categories: territorial issues, disarmament, reparations and assignment of guilt. Territorially, Germany had to renounce sovereignty over its colonies and in Europe lost 65,000 sq km (25,000 sq mi) or about 13% of its former territory – including 48% of its iron and 10% of its coal resources – along with 7 million people, or 12% of its population. The Saarland
34680-403: The March 1920 Kapp Putsch , Freikorps units under General von Lüttwitz occupied the government quarter in Berlin. In an attempt to reverse the revolution and install an autocratic government, the former Prussian civil servant Wolfgang Kapp appointed himself Reich chancellor and Lüttwitz Reichswehr minister and commander-in-chief of the Reichswehr. The legal government fled Berlin and called for
34969-511: The Mobilisation Plan 1941 (MP-41), called for the deployment of 186 divisions, as the first strategic echelon, in the four military districts of the western Soviet Union that faced the Axis territories; and the deployment of another 51 divisions along the Dvina and Dnieper Rivers as the second strategic echelon under Stavka control, which in the case of a German invasion was tasked to spearhead
35258-464: The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, but instead were the means of Hillgruber and Hildebrand could attack various trends in the world of 1979 such as détente with the Soviet Union, radical students on university campuses, the theory that the Soviet Union was not a totalitarian dictatorship, and the rise of the functionalist school of historiography that they disapproved of. Ueberschär and Müller noted one of
35547-552: The National Assembly convened in the city of Weimar , giving the future Republic its unofficial name. The Weimar Constitution created a parliamentary republic with the Reichstag elected by proportional representation . During the debates in Weimar, fighting continued sporadically across Germany. On 7 April 1919 the Bavarian Soviet Republic was declared in Munich but quickly put down by Freikorps and remnants of
35836-477: The National Assembly voted to approve the treaty on 23 June. It was signed in Paris five days later. Explaining the rise of extreme nationalist movements in Germany shortly after the war, British historian Ian Kershaw pointed to the "national disgrace" that was "felt throughout Germany at the humiliating terms imposed by the victorious Allies and reflected in the Versailles Treaty...with its confiscation of territory on
36125-420: The Nazi " Thousand-Year Reich ". As early as 1925, Adolf Hitler vaguely declared in his political manifesto and autobiography Mein Kampf that he would invade the Soviet Union , asserting that the German people needed to secure Lebensraum ('living space') to ensure the survival of Germany for generations to come. On 10 February 1939, Hitler told his army commanders that the next war would be "purely
36414-631: The Nazi period, German foreign policy went through ten different phases. Hillgruber contended that, during the early phases, Hitler was intent on having the anti-Soviet alliance with Britain he had written of in Mein Kampf and in the Zweites Buch . By the time of the Hossbach Memorandum of 1937, Hillgruber argued, Hitler was undertaking a course of expansion either "without Britain" or, preferably, "with Britain", but if necessary "against Britain". By
36703-483: The Nazis had shattered these friendly ties. Others contended that these bonds of friendship had never existed except as figments of Hillgruber's imagination. For Hillgruber, Germany's defeat in 1945 was a catastrophe that ended both the ethnic German presence in Eastern Europe and Germany as a great power in Europe. As someone from the "Germanic East", Hillgruber often wrote nostalgically of the lost Heimat of East Prussia where he had grown up. Hillgruber once responded to
36992-519: The Red Army was developed and promulgated in the 1936 Field Regulations in the form of the Deep Battle Concept . Defence expenditure also grew rapidly from just 12 percent of the gross national product in 1933 to 18 percent by 1940. During Joseph Stalin's Great Purge in the late 1930s, which had not ended by the time of the German invasion on 22 June 1941, much of the officer corps of the Red Army
37281-466: The Rhineland and 50 kilometres (31 miles) east of the river demolished. Germany was prohibited from having an air force, tanks, poison gas, heavy artillery, submarines or dreadnoughts . A large number of its ships and all of its air-related armaments were to be surrendered. Germany had to compensate the Allied Powers for the losses and damages of the war, with the exact amount left to be determined at
37570-629: The Soviet Red Army , leading among other things to the secret training of German military pilots in clear violation of the Treaty of Versailles. With Seeckt's fall in 1926, the Reichswehr made a change in course for which Colonel (later General) Kurt von Schleicher was primarily responsible. The goal was to arouse broad social support for rearmament and to militarize society itself for the purpose of future warfare. Under Paul von Hindenburg's Reich presidency, Reichswehr leadership gained increasing political influence and eventually helped determine
37859-455: The Soviet Union in Mein Kampf and Hitler's belief that the Red Army would need four years to ready itself. Stalin declared "we must be ready much earlier" and "we will try to delay the war for another two years". As early as August 1940, British intelligence had received hints of German plans to attack the Soviets a week after Hitler informally approved the plans for Barbarossa and warned the Soviet Union accordingly. Some of this intelligence
38148-606: The Soviet Union in 1941 was linked to the decision to initiate the Holocaust. Hillgruber argued that the Kernstück (Nucleus) of Hitler's racist Weltanschauung (world view) was to be found in Mein Kampf . He believed that the Holocaust was meant to be launched only with the invasion of the Soviet Union. In Hillgruber's view, Hitler's frequent references to "Judaeo-Bolshevism", to describe both Jews and Communism, betrayed his desire to destroy both simultaneously. In Hillgruber's opinion, Operation Barbarossa had been conceived as, and was,
38437-516: The Soviet Union the most favorable deal. Hillgruber noted that in 1939, when war threatened over Poland, unlike in 1938 when war threatened to occur over Czechoslovakia , Hitler received overwhelming support from the Wehrmacht leadership. The reason for this difference, in Hillgruber's opinion, was the rampant anti-Polish feeling in the German Army. In support of this argument, Hillgruber quoted from
38726-467: The Soviet Union's "most important and strongest enemy," and as early as July 1940, the Red Army Chief of Staff, Boris Shaposhnikov , produced a preliminary three-pronged plan of attack for what a German invasion might look like, remarkably similar to the actual attack. Since April 1941, the Germans had begun setting up Operation Haifisch and Operation Harpune to substantiate their claims that Britain
39015-427: The Soviet Union, and that intense Anglo-Soviet competition for worldwide spheres of influence gave Germany the room to maneuver and to assert its interests after the defeat of 1918 as, at various times, both Moscow and London sought better relations with Berlin. In the debate between the "Continentists" (such as Hugh Trevor-Roper , Axel Kuhn, and Eberhard Jäckel , who argued that Hitler wanted only to seize Europe) and
39304-542: The Soviet border even before the campaign in the Balkans had finished. By the third week of February 1941, 680,000 German soldiers were gathered in assembly areas on the Romanian-Soviet border. In preparation for the attack, Hitler had secretly moved upwards of 3 million German troops and approximately 690,000 Axis soldiers to the Soviet border regions. Additional Luftwaffe operations included numerous aerial surveillance missions over Soviet territory many months before
39593-511: The Soviet regime's brutality when targeting the Slavs with propaganda. They also claimed that the Red Army was preparing to attack the Germans , and their own invasion was thus presented as a pre-emptive strike. Hitler also utilised the rising tension between the Soviet Union and Germany over territories in the Balkans as one of the pretexts for the invasion. While no concrete plans had yet been made, Hitler told one of his generals in June 1940 that
39882-545: The Soviets to the forces of Genghis Khan , Hitler told the Croatian military leader Slavko Kvaternik that the "Mongolian race" threatened Europe. Following the invasion, many Wehrmacht officers told their soldiers to target people who were described as "Jewish Bolshevik subhumans," the "Mongol hordes," the "Asiatic flood" and the "Red beast." Nazi propaganda portrayed the war against the Soviet Union as an ideological war between German National Socialism and Jewish Bolshevism and
40171-456: The Soviets, in their current bureaucratic form, were harmless and that the occupation would not benefit Germany politically either. Hitler, solely focused on his ultimate ideological goal of eliminating the Soviet Union and Communism, disagreed with economists about the risks and told his right-hand man Hermann Göring , the chief of the Luftwaffe , that he would no longer listen to misgivings about
40460-648: The Third Reich, and after World War II, both the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic readopted the black-red-gold flag. The coat of arms was initially based on the Reichsadler ("imperial eagle") introduced by the Paulskirche Constitution of 1849, and announced in November 1919. In 1928, a new design by Karl-Tobias Schwab was adopted as national coat of arms, which
40749-437: The United States in December 1941 was influenced by his belief that the Soviet Union would be defeated by no later than the summer of 1942. In his 1965 book Hitlers Strategie , Hillgruber caused some controversy with his argument that a French attack on the Siegfried Line in the autumn of 1939 would have resulted in a swift German defeat. In 1969 the French historian Albert Merglen expanded on Hillgruber's suggestion by writing
41038-485: The United States in return for which he wanted acquiescence in Germany "revising" her borders with Poland, the annexation of Austria, the remilitarization of the Rhineland, and the return of Eupen-Malmedy . Hillgruber wrote that Stresemann was seeking the return of the Bismarckian "semi-hegemony", which would serve as "the prerequisite and the basis for an active Weltpolitik ". In his 1974 essay "Militarismus am Ende der Weimarer Republik und im 'Dritten Reich'" ("Militarism at
41327-410: The United States would take advantage of the collapse of the British Empire to seize British colonies for itself, but at the same time, Churchill 's repeated refusals of Hitler's offers to begin peace talks in 1940-1941 left him with no other choice but to work for the destruction of British power. In his 1974 article "England's Place In Hitler's Plans for World Dominion", Hillgruber argued that, during
41616-438: The Workers' and Soldiers' Council of Greater Berlin called for a National Congress of Councils ( Reichsrätekongress ) which took place from 16 to 21 December 1918. Against the opposition of the more radical members who demanded a socialist republic, Ebert, backed by the large MSPD majority at the Congress, was able to schedule the election for a provisional National Assembly that would act as an interim parliament and be given
41905-424: The abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II was announced, marking the end of Imperial Germany and the beginning of the Weimar Republic. The armistice that ended the fighting was signed on 11 November. Germany lost the war because its allies were facing defeat and its economic resources were running out, while by late summer 1918 fresh American troops were arriving in France at the rate of 10,000 per day. Support among
42194-399: The acquisition of complementary territory in Central Africa and a system of bases to support a strong surface fleet in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean. Germany, in alliance with Japan and if possible also Britain, would in the first place isolate the USA and confine it to the Western hemisphere. Then, in the next generation, there would be a "war of the continents" in which the "Germanic empire of
42483-411: The affirmation of Ebert, those responsible were not tried before a court-martial, leading to lenient sentences, which made Ebert unpopular among radical leftists. The National Assembly election , in which women were allowed to vote for the first time, took place on 19 January 1919. The MSPD won the largest share of the votes at 37.9%, with the USPD fifth at 7.6%. To avoid the ongoing fights in Berlin,
42772-428: The agenda for the next step after the anticipated quick conquest of the Soviet Union. The Hunger Plan outlined how entire urban populations of conquered territories were to be starved to death, thus creating an agricultural surplus to feed Germany and urban space for the German upper class. Nazi policy aimed to destroy the Soviet Union as a political entity in accordance with the geopolitical Lebensraum ideals for
43061-399: The annexation of the eastern part of the country. As a result of the pact, Germany and the Soviet Union maintained reasonably strong diplomatic relations for two years and fostered an important economic relationship . The countries entered a trade pact in 1940 by which the Soviets received German military equipment and trade goods in exchange for raw materials, such as oil and wheat, to help
43350-401: The area south of Kursk, to the Don east of Rostov. Germany had thus secured the Ukraine. The Russian recognition of the Ukraine's separation exacted at Brest-Litovsk represented the key element in German efforts to keep Russia perpetually subservient. In addition, German troops held the Crimea and were stationed in smaller numbers in Transcaucasia. Even the unoccupied "rump" Russia appeared - with
43639-427: The argument issued by the OHL in 1914 that Germany had been threatened by invasion and encirclement. Revising the conditions of the Versailles Treaty became the main goal of German foreign policy. The consensus opposing the "war guilt clause" did much to promote agitation against foreign countries and the Weimar Constitution. Both the DNVP and, in particular, the NSDAP questioned the entire post-war order and propagated
43928-400: The attack. Although the Soviet High Command was alarmed by this, Stalin's belief that Nazi Germany was unlikely to attack only two years after signing the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact resulted in slow Soviet preparation. This fact aside, the Soviets did not entirely overlook the threat of their German neighbor. Well before the German invasion, Marshal Semyon Timoshenko referred to the Germans as
44217-442: The balance of power as Hitler proposed in the 1920s in Mein Kampf . Hillgruber wrote that Neville Chamberlain for all his attachment to appeasement, once he learned that Hitler's aims were not limited towards revising Versailles, ultimately went to war with Germany in September 1939 rather than accept the disruption of the balance of power that Hitler was attempting to carry out". Likewise, Hillgruber argued that Hitler's contempt for
44506-453: The beginning of a long series of clashes between the two historians over interpretations of German foreign policy. In a 1956 book review of Hitler, König Carol und Marschall Antonescu , Weinberg criticized Hillgruber for engaging in what Weinberg considered an apologia for Germany in World War II. Weinberg took issue with Hillgruber's claim that World War II began with the Anglo-French declarations of war on Germany on 3 September 1939 rather with
44795-447: The benefit of future generations of the " Nordic master race ". In 1941, Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg —later appointed Reich Minister of the Occupied Eastern Territories—suggested that conquered Soviet territory should be administered in the following Reichskommissariate ('Reich Commissionerships'): German military planners also researched Napoleon's failed invasion of Russia . In their calculations, they concluded that there
45084-412: The border area. In 1930, Mikhail Tukhachevsky , a prominent military theorist in tank warfare in the interwar period and later Marshal of the Soviet Union , forwarded a memo to the Kremlin that lobbied for colossal investment in the resources required for the mass production of weapons, pressing the case for "40,000 aircraft and 50,000 tanks." In the early 1930s, a modern operational doctrine for
45373-414: The capitalist states (which Stalin saw as inevitable), Stalin stated: "We will enter the fray at the end, throwing our critical weight onto the scale, a weight that should prove to be decisive". However, Hillgruber believed that the initiative for the German-Soviet rapprochement of 1939 came from the German side, and that Stalin sought to play the Germans and the British off one another, to see who could offer
45662-399: The changes in German foreign policy introduced by National Socialist Ostpolitik (Eastern Policy) were so radical as to be almost differences of kind rather than degree. He argued that Nazi foreign policy was an extremely radical version of traditional German foreign policy. Furthermore, he argued that what during the Weimar era had been the end became, for the Nazis, just the means. He set out
45951-470: The collapse of Chancellor Hermann Müller's grand coalition and the beginning of the presidential cabinets . From March 1930 onwards, President Paul von Hindenburg used emergency powers to back Chancellors Heinrich Brüning , Franz von Papen and General Kurt von Schleicher . The Great Depression, exacerbated by Brüning's policy of deflation , led to a surge in unemployment . On 30 January 1933, Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler as Chancellor to head
46240-424: The composition of the Reich governments. As a result, the Reichswehr contributed significantly to the development of an authoritarian presidential system during the final phase of the Weimar Republic. After Adolf Hitler announced the "regaining of military sovereignty" (reintroduction of conscription etc.) in 1935, two years after his rise to power , the Reichswehr was absorbed into the new Wehrmacht . It
46529-459: The conclusion of the German-Soviet Supplementary Treaty on 28 August 1918 - to be in firm though indirect dependency on the Reich . Thus, Hitler's long-range aim, fixed in the 1920s, of erecting a German Eastern Imperium on the ruins of the Soviet Union was not simply a vision emanating from an abstract wish. In the Eastern sphere established in 1918, this goal had a concrete point of departure. The German Eastern Imperium had already been - if only for
46818-412: The conquest of the Soviet Union , Hitler wanted to seize most of Africa, to build a huge navy , and (in alliance with both the Japanese and the British) to engage the United States in a "War of the Continents" for world domination. As Hillgruber described it: After the creation of a European continental empire buttressed by the conquest of Russia, a second stage of imperial expansion was to follow with
47107-445: The continental blockade, the loss of Germany's overseas colonies and the worsening debt balances that had been exacerbated by Germany's heavy reliance on bonds to pay for the war. The economic losses can be attributed in part to the extension of the Allied blockade of Germany until the Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June 1919. It is estimated that between 100,000 and 250,000 German civilians died of disease or starvation between
47396-460: The cost, and very wide-ranging annexations in Europe, Asia and Africa. In this way, Hillgruber largely followed the distinction first made by Gerhard Ritter between a moderate civilian group in the German leadership centred on Bethmann Hollweg who, while not eschewing territorial expansionism, did not insist on it as a precondition for making peace, and the more radical group in the military centered on Ludendorff, who would settle for nothing less than
47685-517: The course of World War II and the subsequent history of the 20th century . The German armies eventually captured five million Soviet Red Army troops and deliberately starved to death or otherwise killed 3.3 million Soviet prisoners of war, and millions of civilians, as the " Hunger Plan " worked to solve German food shortages and exterminate the Slavic population through starvation. Mass shootings and gassing operations , carried out by German death squads or willing collaborators, murdered over
47974-430: The creation of military units. Beginning in July 1940, the Red Army General Staff developed war plans that identified the Wehrmacht as the most dangerous threat to the Soviet Union, and that in the case of a war with Germany, the Wehrmacht ' s main attack would come through the region north of the Pripyat Marshes into Belorussia, which later proved to be correct. Stalin disagreed, and in October, he authorised
48263-407: The decision-making with the military being a mere functional elite that existed to carry out the will of the Führer who was too mentally unstable to function as an effective leader, thus making the Eastern Front into a war that Germany had lost rather than one that the Soviet Union had won. At times, the apologist school even suggested that Barbarossa really was a "preventive war" forced on Germany by
48552-458: The development and implementation of the Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact provide clear evidence of dominating, all-important role of the Leader". In this way, Hillgruber and Hildebrand affirmed their belief in the traditional, top-down Rankean Primat der Aussenpolitik approach to history. A self-proclaimed conservative and nationalist , Hillgruber never denied nor downplayed the crimes committed in Germany's name and in no way can he be considered
48841-419: The development of new plans that assumed a German attack would focus on the region south of Pripyat Marshes towards the economically vital regions in Ukraine. This became the basis for all subsequent Soviet war plans and the deployment of their armed forces in preparation for the German invasion. In the Soviet Union, speaking to his generals in December 1940, Stalin mentioned Hitler's references to an attack on
49130-491: The direct control of OKH . These were equipped with 6,867 armoured vehicles, of which 3,350–3,795 were tanks, 2,770–4,389 aircraft (that amounted to 65 percent of the Luftwaffe ), 7,200–23,435 artillery pieces, 17,081 mortars, about 600,000 motor vehicles and 625,000–700,000 horses. Finland slated 14 divisions for the invasion, and Romania offered 13 divisions and eight brigades over the course of Barbarossa. The entire Axis forces, 3.8 million personnel, deployed across
49419-457: The dissemination of the Nazi racial plan, as he informed the 4th Panzer Group that the war against the Soviet Union was "an essential part of the German people's struggle for existence" ( Daseinskampf ), also referring to the imminent battle as the "old struggle of Germans against Slavs" and even stated, "the struggle must aim at the annihilation of today's Russia and must, therefore, be waged with unparalleled harshness." Hoepner also added that
49708-426: The east bank near Cologne , Mainz and Koblenz . In addition, the Rhineland and an area stretching 50 kilometers east of the Rhine was to be demilitarized. France had demanded the occupation both to protect itself from a renewed German attack and as collateral for German reparations. The occupation was to last 5 years in the British zone, 10 in the American and 15 years in the French and Belgian zones, until 1934, but
49997-433: The eastern border and even more so its 'guilt clause'." Adolf Hitler repeatedly blamed the Republic and its democracy for accepting the oppressive terms of the treaty. Article 231 of the Versailles Treaty was widely perceived not only as a legal legitimisation of reparations but also as a moral condemnation of Germany, and it triggered a storm of indignation among the German public. The hostility towards it came from across
50286-413: The economic dangers of a war with the USSR. It is speculated that this was passed on to General Georg Thomas , who had produced reports that predicted a net economic drain for Germany in the event of an invasion of the Soviet Union unless its economy was captured intact and the Caucasus oilfields seized in the first blow; Thomas revised his future report to fit Hitler's wishes. The Red Army's ineptitude in
50575-399: The empire it created for Germany in Eastern Europe was the prototype for Hitler's vision of a great empire for Germany in Eastern Europe. Hillgruber wrote: To understand later German history one must pay special attention to a consequence of the Eastern situation in the autumn of 1918 that has often been overlooked: the widely shared and strangely irrational misconceptions concerning the end of
50864-423: The end of 1941, and the subsequent Soviet winter counteroffensive pushed the Germans about 250 km (160 mi) back. German high command anticipated a quick collapse of Soviet resistance as in the invasion of Poland , analogous to the reaction Russia had during World War I, but instead the Red Army absorbed the German Wehrmacht ' s strongest blows and bogged it down in a war of attrition for which
51153-417: The end of the war and the signing of the treaty. Many German civilians expected life to return to pre-war normality after it was lifted, but the severe food shortages continued. In 1922, for example, meat consumption had not increased since the war years. At 22 kilograms per person per year, it was less than half of the 52 kilograms consumed in 1913. German citizens felt the food shortages more deeply than during
51442-422: The enormous fall in the Papiermark 's value. After four years of war and famine, many German workers were disenchanted with the capitalist system and hoped for a new era under socialism or communism. Socialists dominated the new revolutionary government in Berlin, and numerous short-lived council republics were set up in cities across Germany. Even after they were suppressed, ideological conflicts between
51731-414: The eventual defeat and collapse of Nazi Germany in 1945. The theme of Barbarossa had long been used by the Nazi Party as part of their political imagery, though this was really a continuation of the glorification of the famous Crusader king by German nationalists since the 19th century. According to a Germanic medieval legend, revived in the 19th century by the nationalistic tropes of German Romanticism ,
52020-406: The exact German launch date, but Sorge and other informers had previously given different invasion dates that passed peacefully before the actual invasion. Stalin acknowledged the possibility of an attack in general and therefore made significant preparations, but decided not to run the risk of provoking Hitler. In early 1941, Stalin authorised the State Defence Plan 1941 (DP-41), which along with
52309-412: The fall of Hans von Seeckt in 1926, Kurt von Schleicher became “in fact, if not in name”, the "military-political head of the Reichswehr ”. Hillgruber wrote that Schleicher's triumph was also the triumph of the "modern" faction within the Reichswehr who favored a total war ideology and wanted Germany to become a dictatorship in order to wage total war upon the other nations of Europe in order to win
52598-570: The fantasies of a large part of the German public that had never assimilated the loss of the war. To this one must add, however, that the essence of Hitler's program "violated all standards and concepts of German foreign policy to such a radical degree that it... did not penetrate the consciousness of the German public", despite its continual proclamation in his speeches from 1926 to 1930. The American historian of modern Germany Gordon A. Craig praised Hillgruber for his "masterful delineation of Hitler's grand strategical plan". Hillgruber maintained that
52887-399: The government, which wanted to prevent a German admission of guilt before the world public. The committee met until 1932. During the course of World War I, war reporting was the responsibility of the German General Staff and after 1918 of the Potsdam Reich Archives founded by General Hans von Seeckt , which dedicated itself to the task of "disproving" German war guilt and war crimes. As
53176-421: The grassroots level and put themselves at the front of the movement. They joined the calls for Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicate, and when he refused, Chancellor Maximilian of Baden made a public announcement that the Kaiser and Crown Prince Wilhelm had already done so. Gustav Noske (MSPD) was sent to Kiel to prevent any further unrest and took on the task of controlling the mutinous sailors and their supporters in
53465-413: The historiography of the Eastern Front, the German historians Gerd R. Ueberschär and Rolf-Dieter Müller wrote: "Hillgruber developed a considerable reputation before his death in 1989 as the godfather of West German research into the war and a celebrated historian of German state created by Bismarck." The New Zealand historian David Stahel noted that in the 1960s, the historiography of the Eastern Front
53754-413: The ideals of the labour movement because of their alliance with the old elites; the Right held the supporters of the Republic responsible for Germany's defeat in the First World War, denigrating them as "November criminals" and insinuating that the German army, which was still fighting on enemy soil when the war ended, had been stabbed in the back by them and the revolution (the stab-in-the-back myth ). In
54043-484: The illegal Soviet occupation of eastern Germany and the equally illegitimate East German regime while at the same time accepted the partition of Berlin as permanent. Hillgruber wrote that the agreement had confirmed the "status quo minus" of Berlin, and that the agreement was too vague with the reference to the "existing conditions in the relevant area". Finally, Hillgruber charged that the West had given in by promising to limit contact between West and East Berlin and allowing
54332-604: The industrial district. After bloody battles in which an estimated 1,000 insurgents and 200 soldiers died, Reichswehr and Freikorps units suppressed the revolt in early April. Operation Barbarossa Frontline strength (22 June 1941) Frontline strength (22 June 1941) Total military casualties: 1,000,000+ According to German Army medical reports (including Army Norway ): Other involved country losses Total military casualties: 4,500,000 Based on Soviet archives: Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 Air war Operation Barbarossa
54621-427: The institutional structures Bismarck created: the successor to the Roman Empire ; the vision of God's Empire here on earth; the universality of its claim to suzerainty ; and a more prosaic but no less powerful sense, the concept of a German state that would include all German speakers in Central Europe – 'one People, one Reich, one Leader', as the Nazi slogan was to put it. The black-red-gold tricolour of
54910-421: The intended alliance with Britain were the most important stages of Hitler's Stufenplan . Hillgruber claimed that though the Fuhrer was highly flexible in ways of realizing his "programme", Hitler was consistent throughout his political career in trying to achieve the "programme" he worked out in the 1920s. Hillgruber claimed that the outbreak of a world war in 1939 which Hitler had caused (but had not planned) with
55199-419: The international reaction would be to a German attack on France. In response to negative international reaction to the "war-in-sight crisis", Bismarck ultimately issued the Bad Kissingen decree of June 25, 1877 in which he called for a situation "in which all powers save France need us and in which they are prevented from forming coalitions against us through their ties to one another". Hillgruber argued that after
55488-473: The invasion of Poland brought forward the timing of his "programme". Hillgruber used as examples to support his theory the Z Plan of January 1939 and Hitler's plans in June 1940 for annexing much of Africa together with key strategic points in the Atlantic; these Hillgruber submitted as evidence that Hitler was moving forward drastically the timing of his planned ultimate show-down with the United States. According to this argument: Hillgruber argued that after
55777-439: The invasion. Buell adds that an unusually wet winter kept rivers at full flood until late spring. The floods may have discouraged an earlier attack, even if they occurred before the end of the Balkans Campaign. The importance of the delay is still debated. William Shirer argued that Hitler's Balkan Campaign had delayed the commencement of Barbarossa by several weeks and thereby jeopardised it. Many later historians argue that
56066-407: The last foreign troops evacuated the Rhineland on 30 June 1930. The treaty's disarmament provisions were intended to make the future German army incapable of offensive action. It was limited to no more than 100,000 men with only 4,000 officers and no general staff; the navy could have at most 15,000 men and 1,500 officers. The Rhineland was to be demilitarized and occupied and all fortifications in
56355-425: The last stage of the Stufenplan was likewise determined by economic considerations, namely that only a Germany with sufficient Lebensraum and ruling most of Eurasia and Africa would be immune to the effects of blockade, and have the necessary economic resources to match the enormous economic capacity of the United States. Hillgruber believed that the interwar period was dominated by a "Cold War" between Britain and
56644-426: The late 1930s, when it became clear that Britain had no interest in Hitler's overtures, German foreign policy turned anti-British - as reflected in the Z Plan of January 1939 for a gigantic German fleet that would crush the Royal Navy by 1944. Hillgruber argued that the 1939 German-Soviet non-aggression pact had its origins in the British refusal to make an anti-Soviet alliance, which led Hitler to turn over much of
56933-489: The late 1960s he was a target of radical student protesters. He died in Cologne of throat cancer . In the early 1950s Hillgruber still saw World War II as a conventional war, but by 1965 in his book Hitlers Strategie ( Hitler's Strategy ), he was arguing that the war was for Hitler a vicious, ideological war in which no mercy was to be given to one's enemies. In his first book, Hitler, König Carol und Marschall Antonescu ( Hitler, King Carol and Marshal Antonescu ) (1953),
57222-403: The leading players in the debates about National Socialist foreign policy . Hillgruber's writings on the Soviet Union show certain constancies as well as changes over the years. He always argued that the Soviet Union was a brutal, expansionary, totalitarian power, in many ways similar to Nazi Germany . But, on the other hand, he argued that Moscow's foreign policy was conducted in a way that
57511-422: The left-wing social historians, Hillgruber affirmed what he considered the primacy of traditional diplomatic-military history by writing: Despite the significance of all long-term developments, the great differences between the great world powers have basically determined the course of general history, even in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Canadian historian Holger Herwig wrote in 1982 that Hillgruber
57800-460: The mid-1920s, most Germans referred to their government informally as the Deutsche Republik , but for many, especially on the right, the word " Republik " was a painful reminder of a government structure that they believed had been imposed by foreign statesmen and of the expulsion of Emperor Wilhelm II in the wake of a massive national humiliation. The first recorded mention of the term Republik von Weimar (Republic of Weimar) came during
58089-505: The negotiations differently and were willing to make huge economic concessions to secure a relationship under general terms acceptable to the Germans just a year before. On 25 November 1940, the Soviet Union offered a written counter-proposal to join the Axis if Germany would agree to refrain from interference in the Soviet Union's sphere of influence, but Germany did not respond. As both sides began colliding with each other in Eastern Europe, conflict appeared more likely, although they did sign
58378-406: The new Chancellor broad power to act outside parliamentary control. Hitler promptly used these powers to thwart constitutional governance and suspend civil liberties, which brought about the swift collapse of democracy at the federal and state level, and the creation of a one-party dictatorship under his leadership. Until the end of World War II in Europe in 1945, the Nazis governed Germany under
58667-465: The new government was confirmed by the Berlin Workers' and Soldiers' Council, it was opposed by the Spartacus League. On 11 November 1918, an armistice was signed at Compiègne by German representatives. It effectively ended military operations between the Allies and Germany. It amounted to a German capitulation, without any concessions by the Allies; the naval blockade was to continue until complete peace terms were agreed on. The Executive Council of
58956-455: The non-German populations in the East. Himmler believed the Germanisation process in Eastern Europe would be complete when "in the East dwell only men with truly German, Germanic blood." The Nazi secret plan Generalplan Ost , prepared in 1941 and confirmed in 1942, called for a "new order of ethnographical relations" in the territories occupied by Nazi Germany in Eastern Europe. It envisaged ethnic cleansing , executions and enslavement of
59245-399: The officer corps, while Groener pledged that the military would be loyal to the government and that it would help it in its fight against left-wing revolutionaries. The agreement marked the acceptance of the new government by the military, but the new Reichswehr armed forces, limited by the Treaty of Versailles to 100,000 army soldiers and 15,000 sailors, remained fully under the control of
59534-399: The officers dismissed during the Great Purge were reinstated by 1941. Also, between January 1939 and May 1941, 161 new divisions were activated. Therefore, although about 75 percent of all the officers had been in their position for less than one year at the start of the German invasion of 1941, many of the short tenures can be attributed not only to the purge but also to the rapid increase in
59823-693: The oil question in German-Romanian relations while assigning the "Jewish Question" in Romania to an appendix, which seemed to imply that the plans on part of Marshal Antonescu to murder all of Romania's Jews were of minor importance. By contrast, in his 1965 book Hitlers Strategie , which was Hillgruber's Habilitationsschrift , Hillgruber examined the grand strategic decision-making progress in 1940-41 and concluded that, while Hitler had to adjust to diplomatic, economic, strategic and operational military realities, whenever possible his decisions were influenced by his racist, anti-Semitic and Social Darwinist beliefs. Hillgruber's work on German foreign policy made him one of
60112-506: The operation was to be carried out. Hitler also renamed the operation to Barbarossa in honor of medieval Emperor Friedrich I of the Holy Roman Empire, a leader of the Third Crusade in the 12th century. The Barbarossa Decree , issued by Hitler on 30 March 1941, supplemented the Directive by decreeing that the war against the Soviet Union would be one of annihilation and legally sanctioned the eradication of all Communist political leaders and intellectual elites in Eastern Europe. The invasion
60401-410: The operational objective of any invasion of the Soviet Union. This assault would extend from the northern city of Arkhangelsk on the Arctic Sea through Gorky and Rostov to the port city of Astrakhan at the mouth of the Volga on the Caspian Sea . The report concluded that—once established—this military border would reduce the threat to Germany from attacks by enemy bombers . Although Hitler
60690-432: The other frequently involved charges of bad faith, intentional misquotation and suggestions that the other side did not understand history properly. In 1971, Hillgruber was a leading critic of the Quadripartite Agreement on the status of Berlin accusing the West German government and the three western powers with rights in West Berlin, namely the United States, Great Britain and France of granting approval to what he saw as
60979-443: The outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 was caused by structural economic problems, a "flight into war" imposed by a domestic crisis, and not by some master plan for war on the part of Hitler. The Anglo-German historian H.W. Koch in a 1983 essay criticized Hillgruber's picture of Hitler following rigidly preconceived foreign policy he was alleged to have worked out in the 1920s. Koch wrote against Hillgruber that Hitler did not want
61268-401: The outcome of these conversations, all preparations for the East previously ordered orally are to be continued. [Written] directives on that will follow as soon as the basic elements of the army's plan for the operation have been submitted to me and approved by me." There would be no "long-term agreement with Russia" given that the Nazis intended to go to war with them; but the Soviets approached
61557-441: The overwhelming German victory as traditionally depicted, as though the Red Army had taken more losses, the Battle of Smolensk had blunted the German drive onto Moscow, giving the Soviets crucial time to rebuild. Furthermore, Hillgruber was the first historian to point out that the Battle of Smolensk was closely studied in Japan, and led Japanese decision-makers to conclude the Soviet Union would not be defeated in 1941, thereby helping
61846-409: The period 1938-1941 In a 1967 review, the American historian Howard Smyth called Hitlers strategie "a magnificent work based on a thorough study of all source material and literature available in German, English, French, and Italian, and on translations from Russian and Japanese". The German historians Rolf-Dieter Müller and Gerd R. Ueberschär wrote that Hitlers Strategie was ...a book that became
62135-452: The plan for Barbarossa. This belief later led to disputes between Hitler and several German senior officers, including Heinz Guderian , Gerhard Engel , Fedor von Bock and Franz Halder , who believed the decisive victory could only be delivered at Moscow. They were unable to sway Hitler, who had grown overconfident in his own military judgment as a result of the rapid successes in Western Europe. The Germans had begun massing troops near
62424-423: The political spectrum, from the far right to the moderate governing parties to the KPD. After the treaty came into force, the Foreign Office continued the state's control of the debate over war guilt. The War Guilt Department financed and directed the Centre for the Study of the Causes of the War , which was to provide "scientific" support for the "campaign of innocence" abroad. For war-innocence propaganda at home,
62713-403: The population had begun to crumble in 1916, and by mid-1918 many Germans wanted an end to the war. Increasing numbers of them began to associate with the political left, such as the Social Democratic Party and the more radical Independent Social Democratic Party , which demanded an end to the war. When it became obvious to the generals that defeat was at hand, General Erich Ludendorff convinced
63002-511: The populations of conquered countries, with very small percentages undergoing Germanisation, expulsion into the depths of Russia or other fates, while the conquered territories would be Germanised. The plan had two parts, the Kleine Planung ('small plan'), which covered actions to be taken during the war and the Große Planung ('large plan'), which covered policies after the war was won, to be implemented gradually over 25 to 30 years. A speech given by General Erich Hoepner demonstrates
63291-443: The pretense that all the extraordinary measures and laws they implemented were constitutional; notably, there was never an attempt to replace or substantially amend the Weimar constitution . Nevertheless, Hitler's seizure of power ( Machtergreifung ) had effectively ended the republic, replacing its constitutional framework with Führerprinzip , the principle that "the Führer's word is above all written law". The Weimar Republic
63580-412: The rapid defeat of France at the hands of the "invincible" Wehrmacht and by traditional German stereotypes of Russia as a primitive, backward "Asiatic" country. Red Army soldiers were considered brave and tough, but the officer corps was held in contempt. The leadership of the Wehrmacht paid little attention to politics, culture, and the considerable industrial capacity of the Soviet Union, in favour of
63869-427: The regular army dead. The USPD leaders were angered by what they believed was treachery by the MSPD, which in their view had joined with the anti-communist military to suppress the revolution. As a result, the USPD left the Council of the People's Deputies after only seven weeks. On 30 December, the split deepened when the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) was formed out of a number of radical left-wing groups, including
64158-431: The regular army. The fall of the Munich Soviet Republic to these units, many of which were on the extreme right, resulted in the growth of far-right, antisemitic movements and organisations in Bavaria , including Organisation Consul , the Nazi Party , and societies of exiled Russian monarchists. Revolutionary sentiment also arose in the eastern states where interethnic discontent between Germans and minority Poles led to
64447-443: The republic was usually simply called "Germany", with "Weimar Republic" (a term introduced by Adolf Hitler in 1929) not commonly used until the 1930s. The Weimar Republic had a semi-presidential system . At the end of the First World War (1914–1918), Germany was exhausted and sued for peace in desperate circumstances. Awareness of imminent defeat sparked a revolution , the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II , formal surrender to
64736-509: The rest of Europe. Other historians contend that Stalin did not plan for such an attack in June 1941, given the parlous state of the Red Army at the time of the invasion. Stalin's reputation as a brutal dictator contributed both to the Nazis' justification of their assault and to their expectations of success, as Stalin's Great Purge of the 1930s had executed many competent and experienced military officers, leaving Red Army leadership weaker than their German adversary. The Nazis often emphasized
65025-409: The rest of the world learned of this pact but were unaware of the provisions to partition Poland. The pact stunned the world because of the parties' earlier mutual hostility and their conflicting ideologies . The conclusion of this pact was followed by the German invasion of Poland on 1 September that triggered the outbreak of World War II in Europe , then the Soviet invasion of Poland that led to
65314-423: The right of the spectrum, the politically engaged rejected the new democratic model and were appalled to see the honour of the traditional word Reich associated with it. The Catholic Centre Party favoured the term Deutscher Volksstaat (German People's State), while on the moderate left, Chancellor Friedrich Ebert 's Social Democratic Party of Germany preferred Deutsche Republik (German Republic). By
65603-403: The role of political commissars at the divisional level and below to oversee the political loyalty of the army to the regime. The commissars held a position equal to that of the commander of the unit they were overseeing. But in spite of efforts to ensure the political subservience of the armed forces, in the wake of Red Army's poor performance in Poland and in the Winter War, about 80 percent of
65892-408: The running of German foreign policy to Ribbentrop in 1938-1939, and that Ribbrentrop in turn believed that a solid continental bloc of states led by Germany would deter Britain from involvement in Europe. In this connection, Hillgruber argued that for the moment Hitler - under the influence of Ribbentrop - put off his plans for a "grand solution" in the east in favor of an anti-British foreign policy. At
66181-450: The same book, Hillgruber attacked the New Left for lacking the proper methodological tools for the understanding of German history. In particular, Hillgruber argued that the Primat der Innenpolitik thesis employed by historians such as Wehler was not a proper scholarly device, but was instead "an apparent scholarly legitimation" for the New Left to advance its agenda in the present. Hillgruber accused Wehler of "quasi-totalitarian" goals for
66470-426: The same time, Hillgruber argued that British appeasement had as its aim the goal of securing the peace by making enough concessions to Germany that the Germans would accept the post-war international order created by the Treaty of Versailles, whose legitimacy they had never accepted. Hillgruber that by March 1939, when faced with signs that Hitler's foreign policy went beyond merely revising Versailles in Germany's favor,
66759-438: The sharp drop in living standards for the German working class forced Hitler into going to war at a time and place not of his choosing. Mason contended that, when faced with the deep socio-economic crisis, the Nazi leadership had decided to embark upon a ruthless "smash and grab" foreign policy of seizing territory in Eastern Europe which could be pitilessly plundered to support living-standards in Germany. In this way, Mason argued,
67048-505: The so-called "calculated risk". Hillgruber maintained that Germany did not want to cause a world war in 1914, but, by pursuing a high-risk diplomatic strategy of provoking what was supposed to be only a limited war in the Balkans , had inadvertently caused the wider conflict. Hillgruber argued that, long before 1914, the leaders of Germany had been increasingly influenced by Social Darwinism and völkisch ideology , and had become obsessed with Russian industrial and military growth, leading to
67337-419: The socialist movement, which represented mostly labourers, was split among two major left-wing parties: the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD), which called for immediate peace negotiations and favoured a soviet-style command economy, and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), also known as the Majority Social Democratic Party of Germany (MSPD), which had supported the war and favoured
67626-528: The southern section was in Romania. The German forces in the rear (mostly Waffen-SS and Einsatzgruppen units) were to operate in conquered territories to counter any partisan activity in areas they controlled, as well as to execute captured Soviet political commissars and Jews. On 17 June, Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) chief Reinhard Heydrich briefed around thirty to fifty Einsatzgruppen commanders on "the policy of eliminating Jews in Soviet territories, at least in general terms". While
67915-632: The standard work and still retains most of its validity. Despite vehement criticism by some of his older colleagues, Hillgruber undertook a somewhat new interpretation of Hitler's foreign policy in this doctoral thesis...The chief aim of Hitler's foreign policy, imbued with notions of racial superiority, was to conquer a new Lebensraum in the east and achieve a position of world dominance...This interpretation of Nazi foreign policy clearly differed Hillgruber from Fabry and other revisionists, and his work held up well enough to be reprinted twenty years later with only minor changes. Hillgruber argued that Hitler drew
68204-553: The start of the invasion, the manpower of the Soviet military force that had been mobilised was 5.3–5.5 million, and it was still increasing as the Soviet reserve force of 14 million, with at least basic military training, continued to mobilise. The Red Army was dispersed and still preparing when the invasion commenced. Their units were often separated and lacked adequate transportation. While transportation remained insufficient for Red Army forces, when Operation Barbarossa kicked off, they possessed some 33,000 pieces of artillery,
68493-428: The states of interwar Eastern Europe had the economic or military potential to be serious rivals to Germany. In 2000, the American historian Robert M. Citino wrote that "Hillgruber's thesis has become the consensus among German historians". Hillgruber argued that Gustav Stresemann was carrying out a "liberal-imperialist" policy in which he sought improved relations with France and by creating an unofficial alliance with
68782-411: The strategy of Blitzkrieg stemmed largely from economic factors, namely, that for the earlier stages of the Stufenplan , Germany did not have the economic resources for a long war, and that therefore a military programme based upon quality, not quantity, was the most rational use of German economic capacity. Hillgruber argued that Hitler's desire to postpone the final struggle with the United States to
69071-475: The stress on examining the records of the relevant foreign ministry and studies of the foreign policy decision-making elite. Wehler, who favored the Primat der Innenpolitik , for his part contended that diplomatic history should be treated as a sub-branch of social history , calling for theoretically based research, and argued that the real focus should be on the study of the society in question. The exchange between Wehler on one side and Hillgruber and Hildebrand on
69360-449: The sweepingly optimistic assumptions that underlaid Barbarossa. Hillgruber argued that Adolf Hitler had a Stufenplan (stage-by-stage plan) for conquest and genocide in Eastern Europe, and then the world. In the 1960s and 1970s Hillgruber was one of the leaders of a group of German historians - comprising Klaus Hildebrand , Gunter Moltman and J. Henke - who argued that, far from being haphazard, Hitler possessed and attempted to execute
69649-417: The task of writing a democratic constitution for a parliamentary government. To ensure that the fledgling government maintained control over the country, Ebert and General Wilhelm Groener , Ludendorff's successor as leader of the Supreme Army Command (OHL), concluded the secret Ebert–Groener pact on 10 November. Over the telephone, Ebert promised that he would allow sole command of the troops to remain with
69938-406: The territorial losses especially angered the Germans. The treaty was reviled as a dictated rather than a negotiated peace. Philipp Scheidemann , then minister president of Germany, said to the Weimar National Assembly on 12 May 1919, "What hand should not wither that puts this fetter on itself and on us?" He resigned rather than accept the terms, but after the Allies threatened to resume hostilities,
70227-450: The trucks for supplies. The most advanced Soviet tank models—the KV-1 and T-34 —which were superior to all current German tanks, as well as all designs still in development as of the summer 1941, were not available in large numbers at the time the invasion commenced. Furthermore, in the autumn of 1939, the Soviets disbanded their mechanised corps and partly dispersed their tanks to infantry divisions; but following their observation of
70516-407: The use of forced labour to stimulate Germany's overall economy and the expansion of territory to improve Germany's efforts to isolate the United Kingdom. Hitler was further convinced that Britain would sue for peace once the Germans triumphed in the Soviet Union, and if they did not, he would use the resources gained in the East to defeat the British Empire . We only have to kick in the door and
70805-429: The various right-wing historians who attempted to rebut Fischer, such as Gerhard Ritter , Hans Herzfeld, Egmont Zechlin, and Karl Dietrich Erdmann, by accepting Fischer's arguments in part instead of attempting to rebut Fischer in toto . Hillgruber argued in the aftermath of Fischer's 1961 book Griff nach der Weltmacht ( Grasping at World Power ) that the old distinction made by the Swiss historian Walter Hofer between
71094-399: The victories in Western Europe finally freed his hands for a "final showdown" with Bolshevism. With the successful end to the campaign in France , General Erich Marcks was assigned the task of drawing up the initial invasion plans of the Soviet Union. The first battle plans were entitled Operation Draft East (colloquially known as the Marcks Plan ). His report advocated the A-A line as
71383-409: The view that Germany was in an untenable position that required drastic measures. Hillgruber argued that, when the Austrian attack on Serbia caused Russia to mobilize instead of backing down and seeking an accommodation with Germany as expected, the German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg , under strong pressure from a hawkish General Staff led by General Motke the Younger , panicked and ordered
71672-852: The war because the reality contrasted so starkly with their expectations. Immediate post-war industrial production fell to the levels of the 1880s, or 57 percent of its value in 1913. The 1919 per capita GDP was only 73 percent of the comparable 1913 figure. Controlled demobilisation kept unemployment initially at around one million. By January 1922, the unemployment rate had sunk to just 0.9%, but inflation caused most workers' real wages to be significantly lower than they were in 1913. The hyperinflation that peaked in late 1923 had its worst effects on government workers, whose wages did not keep pace with private sector workers, and on middle class Germans who had invested in war bonds or who relied on savings, investments or pensions for their living. What had once been substantial savings became essentially worthless due to
71961-412: The war began, the Nazis issued a ban on sexual relations between Germans and foreign slaves . There were regulations enacted against the Ost-Arbeiter ('Eastern workers') that included the death penalty for sexual relations with a German. Heinrich Himmler , in his secret memorandum, Reflections on the Treatment of Peoples of Alien Races in the East (dated 25 May 1940), outlined the Nazi plans for
72250-462: The war had begun, a split occurred within the German leadership between the moderate imperialism of the Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg , who wished for territorial gains if they could be obtained, but was prepared to settle for a peace based on the pre-1914 status quo , and a more radical group centered on General Erich Ludendorff and the rest of the Third Supreme Command who wanted total victory over all of Germany's enemies, no matter what
72539-403: The war that found such currency in the Weimar period. These ideas were not informed, as they should have been, by an appreciation of the enemy's superiority in the West and the inevitable step-by-step retreat of the German Western Front before the massive influx of the Americans. Nor did they indicate any understanding of the catastrophic consequences for the Central Powers following the collapse of
72828-419: The whole rotten structure will come crashing down. Hitler received the final military plans for the invasion on 5 December 1940, which the German High Command had been working on since July 1940, under the codename "Operation Otto." Upon reviewing the plans, Hitler formally committed Germany to the invasion when he issued Führer Directive 21 on 18 December 1940, where he outlined the precise manner in which
73117-417: The world, the final Allied offensive began in August 1918, and the position of Germany and the Central Powers deteriorated, leading them to sue for peace. After initial offers were rejected by the Allied Powers, the hunger and privation of the war years came together with the awareness of an impending military defeat to help spark the German Revolution . On 9 November 1918, a republic was proclaimed , and
73406-422: Was Bismarck's way of probing the European reaction towards a German "preventive war" to destroy France, and finding that Russia was unsupportive and Britain inclined to intervene, chose the third option. Hillgruber argued that the article under the title "Is War in Sight?" published in a Berlin newspaper close to Bismarck, and which concluded that war was indeed "in sight" was a trial balloon by Bismarck to see what
73695-447: Was German history from 1871 to 1945, especially its political , diplomatic and military aspects. He argued for understanding this period as one of continuities. In his first address as a professor at Freiburg in 1969, Hillgruber argued for understanding the entire "Bismarck Reich" as one of continuities between 1871 and 1945. For Hillgruber, the continuities of the "Bismarck Reich" were a certain mentalité amongst German elites, namely
73984-461: Was a "kernel of truth" in Hoggan's claims in that Hitler had believed that he could invade Poland in 1939 without provoking a war with Britain, and was most unpleasantly surprised by the British declaration of war, but maintained that, overall, Hoggan's view of Germany as the victim of an Anglo-Polish conspiracy was simply "preposterous". The exchange between Hillgruber and Weinberg on the pages of Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte in 1953-54 marked
74273-514: Was a dubious source because portions of Riezler's diary had been forged after the war to make German foreign policy appear less aggressive than it was in 1914. The Canadian historian Holger Herwig commented that Hillgruber's "calculated risk" theory was the most intellectually sophisticated and ingenious attempt to rebut Fischer's claim of a premeditated war of aggression in 1914, but suffered from his heavy reliance on passages in Riezler's diary likely to have been forged. In Hillgruber's opinion, after
74562-399: Was a follower of Leopold von Ranke 's Primat der Aussenpolitik concept. Herwig wrote that for Hillgruber history was made by small political and military elites who were not prisoners of forces beyond their control, and that instead made history through their choices and decisions. A striking example of Hillgruber's conservative politics came in 1979 when he and his protégé Hildebrand wrote
74851-405: Was a historical period of Germany from 9 November 1918 to 23 March 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclaimed itself, as the German Republic . The period's informal name is derived from the city of Weimar , which hosted the constituent assembly that established its government. In English,
75140-453: Was a posthumous contributor to the book Escape Into War? , a collection of essays examining Imperial German foreign policy that attacked Fischer and the left-wing Bielefeld school of historians headed by Wehler for "relativising" history, and making "banal" statements The Canadian historian James Retallack took the view that Hillgruber together with his allies Klaus Hildebrand , Lothar Gall , Gregor Schöllgen and Michael Stürmer were guilty of
75429-418: Was actually a moderate peace treaty that left the German state intact and with the potential to once again be a great power. Furthermore, Hillgruber argued that with the disappearance of Austria-Hungary and with Soviet Russia widely mistrusted, the outcome of World War I meant that Germany now had the potential to dominate Eastern Europe in a way that never been possible before 1914. Hillgruber argued that none of
75718-493: Was an Intentionalist on the origins of the Holocaust debate, arguing that Adolf Hitler was the driving force behind the Holocaust . This set Hillgruber against Functionalist historians such as Hans Mommsen and Martin Broszat , whose "revisionist" claims on the origins of the Holocaust Hillgruber found distasteful. Hillgruber was well known for arguing that there was a close connection between Hitler's foreign policy and anti-Semitic policies and that Hitler's decision to invade
76007-405: Was based on Ultra information obtained from broken Enigma traffic. But Stalin's distrust of the British led him to ignore their warnings in the belief that they were a trick designed to bring the Soviet Union into the war on their side. Soviet intelligence also received word of an invasion around 20 June from Mao Zedong whose spy, Yan Baohang, had overheard talk of the plans at a dinner with
76296-434: Was ceded to the Allied powers, and Danzig went to the League of Nations as the Free City of Danzig . The Polish Corridor left East Prussia physically separated from the rest of Germany. Under the terms of both the Armistice of 1918 and of the Treaty of Versailles, French, British, Belgian and American troops occupied the Rhineland , the area of Germany on the west bank of the Rhine river , together with bridgeheads on
76585-403: Was determined by domestic political pressures, especially as relating to a failing economy, and had nothing to do with what Hitler wanted. In Mason's view, in the period between 1936 and 1941 the state of the German economy, and not Hitler's "will" or "intentions", was the most important determinate on German decision-making in foreign policy. Mason argued that the Nazi leadership, deeply haunted by
76874-447: Was dominated by two flawed schools. The first was the Communist school, which saw Operation Barbarossa as the product of a capitalist conspiracy embracing not only the ruling classes of Germany, but also Britain, France and the United States. The second school was that written by former Wehrmacht generals and historians who were too inclined to face the memoirs of the generals at face value, which asserted that Hitler had completely dominated
77163-585: Was executed or imprisoned. Many of their replacements, appointed by Stalin for political reasons, lacked military competence. Of the five Marshals of the Soviet Union appointed in 1935, only Kliment Voroshilov and Semyon Budyonny survived Stalin's purge. Tukhachevsky was killed in 1937. Fifteen of 16 army commanders, 50 of the 57 corps commanders, 154 of the 186 divisional commanders, and 401 of 456 colonels were killed, and many other officers were dismissed. In total, about 30,000 Red Army personnel were executed. Stalin further underscored his control by reasserting
77452-441: Was firmly committed to turning east. Other historians, such as the German historian Wolfgang Michalka, the Anglo-German historian H.W Koch and the Israeli historian Martin van Creveld , have contended that Hitler's efforts to form an anti-British Eurasian "continental bloc" that was to include the Soviet Union in late 1940 as a diplomatic prelude to the "Mediterranean plan" were sincere, that until December 1940 Hitler's first priority
77741-424: Was in defeating Britain, and that it was only when Hitler gave his approval to Operation Barbarossa on 18 December 1940 that he finally lost interest in Raeder's "Mediterranean strategy". The British historian Aristotle Kallis wrote that the best evidence suggests that in late 1940 Hitler was serious about carrying out Raeder's "Mediterranean plan", but only within certain strict limits and conditions, and that he saw
78030-498: Was incorrect because if that were true, the situation in January 1941 during the Legionnaires' rebellion and Bucharest pogrom with the SS supporting the Iron Guard's coup against General Antonescu who was being supported by the Wehrmacht and the Auswärtiges Amt would never had occurred. Broszat argued that ultimately Hitler chose to support Antonescu as part of his general preference for conservatives like Antonescu who were more capable of governing competently over radical fascists like
78319-444: Was later to play a role in his evaluation and writing about the period. In 1945, Hillgruber fled west to escape the Red Army, another experience that was to influence him greatly. After his release, he studied at the University of Göttingen , where he received a PhD in 1952. As a student, Hillgruber was a leading protégé of the medievalist Percy Ernst Schramm , an academic who, as Eberhard Jäckel commented, regarded World War II as
78608-449: Was little danger of a large-scale retreat of the Red Army into the Russian interior, as it could not afford to give up the Baltic countries, Ukraine, or the Moscow and Leningrad regions, all of which were vital to the Red Army for supply reasons and would thus, have to be defended. Hitler and his generals disagreed on where Germany should focus its energy. Hitler, in many discussions with his generals, repeated his order of "Leningrad first,
78897-441: Was meant to "contain" Germany (Hillgruber argued), Hitler had - under Ribbentrop's influence - decided in August 1939 to do "a 180-degree tactical reversal" and to seek an alliance with the Soviet Union. Hillgruber argued that Hitler believed Ribbentrop's claim that if Britain were confronted by a Germany that had support of the Soviet Union (which could supply the Germans with all of the raw materials that would otherwise be cut off by
79186-401: Was merely an effort to intimidate Britain and France into abandoning Poland. In the same way, Lukacs took issue with Hillgruber's claim that the war against Britain was of only "secondary" importance to Hitler compared to the war against the Soviet Union. The Greek historian Aristotle Kallis wrote that there is "no conclusive evidence" that Hitler "...had a clear plan for world domination..." In
79475-419: Was primarily responsible for World War I , but as a follower of the Primat der Aussenpolitik ("primacy of foreign policy") school, Hillgruber rejected Fischer's Primat der Innenpolitik ("primacy of domestic policy") argument as to why Germany started the First World War . During the so-called "Fischer Controversy" which coalesced the German historical profession in the early 1960s, Hillgruber stood apart from
79764-430: Was put under the control of the League of Nations for 15 years, and the output of the area's coal mines went to France. Alsace–Lorraine , which Prussia had annexed following the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71, once again became French. The northern part of Schleswig-Holstein went to Denmark following a plebiscite. In the east, a significant amount of territory was lost to a restored Poland . The Memel Territory
80053-413: Was rational and realistic, while the foreign policy of Berlin during the Nazi era was completely irrational and unrealistic. The turning point in Hillgruber's attitude came in 1953-1954 when he was involved in a debate with Gerhard Weinberg and Hans Rothfels on the pages of the Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte . Together with Hans-Günther Seraphim , Hillgruber had argued that Operation Barbarossa ,
80342-437: Was spread by the Right throughout the 1920s and ensured that many monarchists and conservatives would refuse to support the government of what they called the "November criminals". The destabilising effect of the stab-in-the-back myth on the Weimar democracy was an important factor in the rise of National Socialism . On 29 October 1918, a rebellion broke out among sailors at Wilhelmshaven ; similar unrest then spread to become
80631-419: Was tentatively set for May 1941, but it was delayed for over a month to allow for further preparations and possibly better weather. the purpose of the Russian campaign [is] the decimation of the Slavic population by thirty million. According to a 1978 essay by German historian Andreas Hillgruber , the invasion plans drawn up by the German military elite were substantially coloured by hubris, stemming from
80920-399: Was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies , starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II . It was the largest and costliest land offensive in human history, with around 10 million combatants taking part, and over 8 million casualties by the end of the operation. The operation, code-named after Frederick I "Barbarossa" ("red beard"),
81209-654: Was the real target. These simulated preparations in Norway and the English Channel coast included activities such as ship concentrations, reconnaissance flights and training exercises. The reasons for the postponement of Barbarossa from the initially planned date of 15 May to the actual invasion date of 22 June 1941 (a 38-day delay) are debated. The reason most commonly cited is the unforeseen contingency of invading Yugoslavia and Greece on 6 April 1941 until June 1941. Historian Thomas B. Buell indicates that Finland and Romania, which weren't involved in initial German planning, needed additional time to prepare to participate in
81498-449: Was the unified armed forces of the Nazi regime. Germany and the Central Powers fought the Allies of WWI between 28 July 1914 and 11 November 1918. The war ended with 20 million military and civilian deaths, including 2,037,000 German soldiers and from 424,000 to 763,000 civilians, many of them from disease and starvation as a result of the Allied blockade of Germany . After four years of war on multiple fronts in Europe and around
81787-424: Was to create more Lebensraum (living space) for Germany, and the eventual extermination of the native Slavic peoples by mass deportation to Siberia , Germanisation , enslavement, and genocide . In the two years leading up to the invasion, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed political and economic pacts for strategic purposes. Following the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina ,
82076-619: Was to follow the Drang nach Osten ('turn to the East') as it did "600 years ago" (see Ostsiedlung ). Accordingly, it was a partially secret but well-documented Nazi policy to kill, deport, or enslave the majority of Russian and other Slavic populations and repopulate the land west of the Urals with Germanic peoples, under Generalplan Ost (General Plan for the East). The Nazis' belief in their ethnic superiority pervades official records and pseudoscientific articles in German periodicals, on topics such as "how to deal with alien populations." While older histories tended to emphasize
82365-480: Was to operate in far northern Scandinavia and bordering Soviet territories . Army Group North was to march through Latvia and Estonia into northern Russia, then either take or destroy the city of Leningrad , and link up with Finnish forces. Army Group Centre, the army group equipped with the most armour and air power, was to strike from Poland into Belorussia and the west-central regions of Russia proper, and advance to Smolensk and then Moscow. Army Group South
82654-441: Was to strike the heavily populated and agricultural heartland of Ukraine, taking Kiev before continuing eastward over the steppes of southern USSR to the Volga with the aim of controlling the oil-rich Caucasus . Army Group South was deployed in two sections separated by a 198-mile (319 km) gap. The northern section, which contained the army group's only panzer group, was in southern Poland right next to Army Group Centre, and
82943-407: Was used until being replaced by the Nazi Reichsadler in 1935, and readopted by the Federal Republic of Germany in 1950. Following Germany's defeat in World War I, several million soldiers of the Imperial German Army either simply dispersed on their own or were formally demobilized. The provisional civilian government and the Supreme Army Command (OHL) planned to transfer the remaining units to
83232-421: Was warned by many high-ranking military officers, such as Friedrich Paulus , that occupying Western Russia would create "more of a drain than a relief for Germany's economic situation," he anticipated compensatory benefits such as the demobilisation of entire divisions to relieve the acute labour shortage in German industry, the exploitation of Ukraine as a reliable and immense source of agricultural products,
83521-437: Was why and how Germany failed as a great power. These interests were reflected in the title of one of Hillgruber's better-known books, Die gescheiterte Grossmacht ( The Failed Great Power ) (1980), in which he examined German power politics from 1871 to 1945. For Hillgruber, there were many elements of continuity in German foreign policy in the 1871–1945 period, especially with regard to Eastern Europe . Hans Mommsen wrote that
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