History 332 – German History – November 12, 2008  

Fest, Hitler, “Interpolation III – The Wrong War”  

607) For Hitler, war is “the ultimate goal of politics.”  

608) Hitler said that the First World War had “never stopped” for him.  

609) He misread England.  

609) He neglected U-Boat building.  

609-10) Hitler was giving up “tried and tested tactics” – the tactics that had made him so successful from 1933 – 1938 (threaten; bluff; deceive; get away with a specific act, like rearmament; remilitarization of the Rhineland; Anschluss; the Sudetenland; then begin again with threats and bluffs) – and became much more violent, risky, and aggressive.   

610) He returned to his “earlier self – obsessed with race; brutally anti-Semitic; driven by both fear and hate; fantasizing about violence.  

611) after 1939, Hitler “abandoned” politics, and launched a war against the world.  

611) he returned to an “intellectual rigidity;” he became mentally “petrified” during the war – inflexible, obsessed with his “War against the Jews.”  

613) He even misread the Germans, who greeted the outbreak of war in 1939 with gloom & pessimism.  

613) Even the early victory over Poland did not excite the German people.  

614) Germany was heavily dependent on the import of raw materials – but Hitler ignored this problem.  

615) Germany, in fact, was only prepared for the war that began on 1 September 1939 (against Poland), not the war that began on 3 September 1939 (the war against Britain and France).  

616)The “Blitzkrieg” was based on the assumption that Germany could win a “lightning-fast” war;  but no preparations were made for a long war; in fact, German war production was badly organized.  

617) Hitler was a “profoundly anachronistic phenomenon” – the whole idea of massive conquests in Europe – “Lebensraum” – was an impossibility in modern times.  Hitler’s dreams of conquest seemed to be a throwback to the Romans.  

619) Hitler’s fantasies of empire were not just “old fashioned;” they included a sinister and bizarre dimension – the idea of mass murder of the conquered people. The fact that he really believed this to be possible – and good – makes him seem “utterly alien,” a throwback to some “primitive race.” 

 

 

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