War guilt question
History of Germany |
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The war guilt question (
The war guilt debate motivated historians such as
While the war guilt question made it possible to investigate the deep-rooted
A century later, debate continues into the 21st century. The main outlines of the debate include: how much diplomatic and political room to maneuver was available; the inevitable consequences of pre-war armament policies; the role of domestic policy and social and economic tensions in the foreign relations of the states involved; the role of public opinion and their experience of war in the face of organized propaganda;[1] the role of economic interests and top military commanders in torpedoing deescalation and peace negotiations; the Sonderweg theory; and the long-term trends which tend to contextualise the First World War as a condition or preparation for the Second, such as Raymond Aron who views the two world wars as the new Thirty Years' War, a theory reprised by Enzo Traverso in his work.[2]
Terminology
The term war guilt question used in English scholarship is a calque of the German term Kriegsschuldfrage which is a
Additional terms are seen in English sources, such as war guilt thesis, Versailles war guilt thesis,[3][a] and others.
Background: World War I
The question of German war guilt (German: Kriegsschuldfrage) took place in the context of the German defeat by the Allied Powers in World War I, during and after the treaties that established the peace, and continuing on throughout the fifteen-year life of the Weimar Republic in Germany from 1919 to 1933, and beyond.
Outbreak of war
Hostilities in
After four years of war on multiple fronts in Europe and around the world, an
Concluding peace
Though hostilities ended on 11 November, a formal state of war continued for months and various treaties were signed amongst the former belligerents. The
Innocence campaign
This sense of an unjust and excessive financial burden imposed by the victorious Allied Powers based on a misplaced accusation of blame for having caused the war caused resentment and anger in Germany and resulted in vigorous efforts on multiple fronts to oppose it, including diplomatic, propagandistic, and others. These efforts to deal with the war guilt question began during treaty negotiations in Paris, continued throughout the life of the Weimar Republic, and contributed to the rise of the NSDAP (Nazi) Party—which seized power in 1933, bringing the Weimar Republic to an end—and to 1939 and the outbreak of World War II. Furthermore, the harsh terms of land reduction of Germany after World War I, which reduced Germany's land size by 13 precent, aggravated and intensified tensions between Germany and the European Allied powers, and lead to calls to retake the lost land.[8]
In the Weimar Republic
Treaty of Versailles
Overview and Treaty clauses
The four great powers led by
War Guilt Clause as the basis for reparations
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Article 231 of the Treaty states:
The
Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies.
The treaty assigned the role of aggressor in World War I to Germany and her allies alone. It meant an initial isolation of Germany, which saw itself as the scapegoat for the misdeeds of the other European states before the World War.
The one-sided apportionment of blame to Germany triggered a national debate. The signatures by Hermann Müller and Johannes Bell, who had come to office through the Weimar National Assembly in 1919, fed the stab-in-the-back myth propagated primarily by Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff and later by Adolf Hitler.
Historians today take a more nuanced view of the causes of World War I than is expressed in the treaty. Article 231 was not intended to evaluate historical events, but to legally and morally legitimize the peace terms that were disadvantageous to the German Reich. Moreover, the German Empire was to be held financially liable for the damage to land and people that the German imperial troops had caused, especially in France. The Treaty of Versailles therefore laid the groundwork for the reparation claims against the German Reich, in an amount which was not initially determined. The representatives of the German Empire therefore protested Article 231 not merely for reasons of self-justification, but with the aim of undermining the moral basis of the enemy's demands as a whole. The
Impact in Germany
Before the treaty was signed on 28 June 1919 the government of the Reich was already talking about an upheaval.[11]
President Friedrich Ebert spoke on 6 February 1919 upon the opening of the Reichstag, of "revenge and plans for rape".[12]
Germany was stunned by the terms of the treaty. The government claimed it was a ploy to dishonor the German people.
For Foreign Minister Brockdorff-Rantzau, recognition of Germany as having sole culpability was a lie.[14] He resigned in June 1919 to avoid having to sign the treaty, which bore the seeds of its own rebuttal. Brockdorff-Rantzau had moreover said before the Allies at Versailles: "But also in the manner of waging war, Germany wasn't the only one to make mistakes, each nation made them. I do not wish to respond to accusations with accusations, but if we are asked to make amends, we must not forget the armistice."[15][c] The violence with which the treaty was imposed forced the Germans to refute it. By its nature, the treaty deprived the Weimar Republic of any historical confrontation with its own history. The thesis of responsibility derived its strength from the fact that for the first time, a country's responsibility had been officially established.
Reactions
Calls for an International tribunal
While representatives of the
With similar objectives, a number of national liberals, including
After the Allies rejected the proposals and demanded instead the extradition of the "war-culpable individuals",
Landsberg project
On 12 March 1919 Minister of Justice Otto Landsberg proposed a bill to establish an international tribunal to analyze events before and during the war. This bill originated in a proposal made by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Wilhelm Solf on 29 November 1918. For Solf, the creation of a neutral commission was the only way to bring international peace, to create lasting guarantees against possible wars, and to restore the confidence of the people.[18]
Solf's proposal was based on the analysis of the political situation and the negotiations between the powers in July 1914 and the positions taken by their respective governments. Solf laid the foundations for a neutral scientific research that should eventually provide a "complete and faithful picture of reality". For this reason, he proposed to publish all the acts of the powers involved in the war, even going so far as wishing to question the personalities who determined the history of their own countries at the time of the outbreak of war as well as any witnesses having important evidence.[18] Few social-democratic representatives supported the project, one exception being Philipp Scheidemann. The Landsberg project was rejected by the Allies, who demanded that the major German war criminals be handed over to them, and abandoned this idea[clarification needed] in 1922.
Propaganda response
At the beginning of World War I, all of the main combatants published bound versions of diplomatic correspondence, with greater or lesser accuracy, partly for domestic consumption and also partly to influence other actors about the responsibility for the war.
After the conclusion of the war and the draconian aspects of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany launched various propaganda efforts to counter the imputation of guilt upon Germany by the victorious Allies, starting with the War Guilt Section (Kriegsschuldreferat), run by the Foreign Ministry (Auswartiges Amt). Two additional units were created in April 1921, in an effort to appear to be independent of the ministry: the Center for the Study of the Causes of the War (Zentralstelle zur Erforschung der Kriegsursachen), and the Working Committee of German Associations Arbeitsausschuss.[19][20]
In addition, the Weimar National Assembly established an inquiry into guilt for the war on 20 August 1919. Its four subcommittees were tasked with examining the causes of the war, what brought about its loss, what missed opportunities for peace had presented themselves, and if international laws had been broken.[21][22] The inquiry continued for thirteen years, until the Nazi Party victory in the election of July 1932. The inquiry's findings were hampered by lack of cooperation from both the government and the military and were in general watered down and deflected blame away from Germany.
War Guilt Section
The position of the SPD party majority, which was tied to its own approval of the war from 1914 to 1918 and left the imperial administrative apparatus almost untouched, continued to determine the domestic political reappraisal of the war.[23] With an eye to the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), that began on 18 January 1919, by late 1918 the Foreign Office had already established the "Bülow Special Office" (Spezialbüro von Bülow), named after former Reich Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow and which had been set up after the armistice. Its role was to collect documents from various sources, including the Bolsheviks, for use by to counter the Allied allegations at Versailles. The documents collected by the Special Bureau were used in German negotiations in Paris, as part of the "Professors' Memorandum" presented to the allies on 27 May 1919. It was probably written by von Bülow, but signed by the professors for "patriotic reasons".[24][25] In 1919, this became the "War Guilt Section" (Kriegsschuldreferat), and its purpose was to counter the war guilt accusation of the Allies. [24]
In the same way that color books did, the Office collected documents to counter accusations that Germany and Austria-Hungary had planned the world war and had "intentionally" disregarded the international law of war. This was also intended to provide foreign historians and journalists with exculpatory material to influence public opinion abroad.
The department also acted as an "internal censorship office", determined which publications were to be praised or criticized, and prepared official statements for the
However, documentation from the War Guilt Section was not considered by the delegates of the victorious powers at the Paris Conference or in the years that followed. The only concession from the Allies, was waiving their demand for extradition of the German "main war criminals" after 1922.[28]
Center for the Study of the Causes of the War
The
Working Committee of German Associations
The
Its mission was to forge a uniform public opinion about the war by moderating extreme protestations of innocence on the right, and of acquiescence in accusations of guilt on the left. In practice, this amounted to silencing those admitting any guilt on the part of Germany, with the intent of strengthening German resolve at home to seek revision of the treaty.
To further this aim, the Committee held seminars, conducted special workshops for the press, unions, and liaison personnel; and held exhibitions, conventions, and rallies. The Committee exploited and distributed the War Guilt Section's documentary collections, and circulated works of foreign revisionists from the United States and Britain. They did not solely address the question of war guilt, but also of reparations, armaments, colonies, the Rhineland issue, minorities, the League of Nations, through guides, pamphlets, and broadsides. They used works of foreign revisionists to strengthen the case for exculpation at home, while striving to maintain a united front at home in order to influence revisionists abroad, such as the American Harry Elmer Barnes.[30]
Dealing with the issue and responsibilities
Potsdam Reichsarchiv
From 1914 on, the German army exerted a great influence on German historiography. The General Staff was responsible for writing war reports until 1918, when the Potsdam Reichsarchiv [fr; de], founded by Hans von Seeckt, took over. The Foreign Office conducted the historiography of the Weimar Republic in parallel with the Reichswehr and its administrative staff, who were largely opposed to democracy.
The Reichsarchiv also worked to refute German responsibility for the war, and for war crimes. To this end, it produced technical reports for the parliamentary commission and published eighteen volumes on the subject of "The First World War 1914–1918" from 1925 until it was taken over by the German Federal Archives (Bundesarchiv) in 1956. Until 1933, the methods of historical criticism used were:
- methodical interrogation of witnesses and analysis of reports from subordinate military services where collections of military mail become new historical sources.
- Some of the criticism of the Supreme Army Command, especially against Helmuth von Moltke and Erich von Falkenhayn, was officially admitted, which relieved their successors, Hindenburg and Ludendorff, of their responsibility.
- The primacy of government policy and the traditional German attraction to "great leaders" contradicts, in part unintentionally, the logic of the legend which arose from fateful forces, of non-responsibility for the war.
Nevertheless, some aspects remain to be studied, such as the influence of the economy, the masses, or ideology, on the course of the war. The evolution towards a "total war" is a concept that is still unknown.[31]
Acknowledging the question
While most of the German media denounced the treaty, others believed that the question of responsibility for the war should be dealt with at a moral level. One example was Die Weltbühne ("World Stage"), a left-liberal journal founded in November 1918. According to its editor, Siegfried Jacobsohn, it is absolutely necessary to expose the faults of pre-war German policy and to acknowledge responsibility in order to achieve a prosperous democracy and a retreat from militarism.
On 8 May 1919, a few days after the bloody repression of the Bavarian Soviet Republic, Heinrich Ströbel wrote in Die Weltbühne:
No, people in Germany are still far from any kind of recognition. Just as one refuses to acknowledge guilt, so also does one stubbornly refuse to believe in the good will of others. One still sees only greed, intrigue, and malice in others, and the most invigorating hope is that the day will come when these dark forces will be made to serve their own interests. The rulers of today still haven't learned anything from the world war; the old illusion, the old megalomania, still dominates them.[i]
Carl von Ossietzky and Kurt Tucholsky, contributors to the review, supported the same point of view. On 23 July 1919, Tucholsky wrote a review of Emil Ludwig's book July 14:
The people did not want war, no people wanted it; through the narrow-mindedness, negligence, and malice of the diplomats this "stupidest of all wars" has come about.[j]
— Kurt Tucholsky, cited in: Kritiken und Rezensionen, Gesammelte Schriften 1907-1935[32]
A pacifist movement was formed in the Weimar Republic, which demonstrated on 1 August, anti-war day. Its members came from different backgrounds: left-wing parties, liberal and anti-militarist groups, former soldiers, officers and generals. They took on the question of responsibility. The role of their women in their
At the first pacifist congress in June 1919, when a minority led by Ludwig Quidde repudiated the Treaty of Versailles, the German League for Human Rights and the Center for International Law [fr] made the question of responsibility a central theme. The independent Social Democrats and Eduard Bernstein were moving in the same direction and managed to change the representation put forward by the Social Democrats that war was a necessary condition for a successful social revolution. This led to the reunification of a minority of the party with the Social Democrats in 1924 and the inclusion of some pacifist demands in the 1925 Heidelberg Program [de; fr][citation needed]
Historians of the Sacred Union
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Historians with minority views
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Walter Fabian
Walter Fabian, journalist and social-democratic politician, published Die Kriegsschuldfrage in 1925.[34] His book, although out of print a year after publication, was one of the books banned after Adolf Hitler came to power and examines the events that led to the war.[citation needed] The general opinion of German historians at the time was that responsibility for the outbreak was shared among various countries, of which Germany was only one, and that Germany had made no advance war preparations, certainly not for a long war. Fabian's book went against the general opinion, and acknowledged that Germany was largely to blame for the outbreak of war because of the attitude of its leading politicians.[35]
Pre-war policy
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Map of Bismarck's alliances
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Fabian's first field of research was the domination of pre-war politics by Bismarck's politics of alliances [de; fr; es] (Bündnispolitik), which Fabian characterizes as "Europe's downfall".[k] The system of alliances set up in the summer of 1914 and its complexity made the outbreak of war inevitable. Otto von Bismarck had recognized the usefulness of this policy at the time;[36] Germany's central location in Europe pushed politicians like Bismarck to form alliances to avoid the nightmare scenario of possible encirclement.[37] After having ensured the neutrality of Russia and Austria-Hungary in 1881 with the singing of the League of the Three Emperors, the Reinsurance Treaty was signed in 1887. The isolation of France was the basis of Bismarckian policy in order to be able to ensure the security of the Reich.
The July Crisis and mobilization
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The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria served as a catalyst for war and "reflected the sharp tension that prevailed between Austria and Hungary for a number of years"[l] The carte blanche given by William II to the Austrian emperor had, according to Fabian, also other reasons, in particular the willingness of Germany to wage a preventive war[38] for fear of Russian mobilization. In marginal notes on a report by German ambassador Heinrich von Tschirschky, William II wrote "The situation with the Serbs must be dealt with, and quickly.[m] Walter Fabian judged the ultimatum addressed to Serbia to be impossible: "Austria wanted the ultimatum to be rejected; Germany, which according to Tirpitz already knew the main points of it on July 13, wanted the same thing."[39][n]
Fabian showed that Germany had an undeniable share of responsibility in the war. Even if the emperor and chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg tried to defuse events at the last moment, the army threw its full weight into the effort in order to force the situation. Chief of Staff von Molkte sent a telegram in which he stated that Germany would mobilize, but William II asserted that there was no longer any reason to declare war since Serbia accepted the ultimatum.[40] Various futile attempts at peace were made, such as the proposal of 27 July to hold a four-power conference.
Supremacy of the army
"In Germany, too, only the military point of view was decisive."[41][o]
The role of the army explains the mechanisms of the war guilt question. The roots of military supremacy are to be found in Prussia and in the system, established by Bismarck, in which Prussian militarism gained importance in the years after the unification of the Reich. As Helmuth von Moltke the Younger showed, in various wars such as the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the Chief of the General Staff wielded great power.[42]
In any other state, the army and navy are nothing but instruments of foreign policy. In militarized Germany, they had a special position; since Bismarck no longer stood in their way, they were more powerful than an Imperial Chancellor and far more popular than all diplomacy.[p]
— Walter Fabian, Fabian (1926)[43]
When war broke out, the military staff intended to emerge victorious within six weeks, thanks to the Schlieffen Plan. Generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff, having come out of retirement, enjoyed great prestige. In 1916, Hindenburg was appointed Chief of Staff, and in 1917, a monumental statue was erected in Berlin in his honor. William II gradually lost his power, to the benefit of the two generals, who took the country in hand.[44] Ludendorff proposed the institution of a compulsory labor service to increase yields, which he believed to be insufficient. Bethmann Hollweg refused, but the
On 13 July 1917, the Chancellor was forced to resign under pressure from the two generals, who even received the political parties[clarification needed] on 14 July 1917.[45]At the opening of armistice negotiations, Germany was in the grip of revolutionary uprisings. A commission, presided over by Matthias Erzberger, was set up to sign the armistice treaty at
Whereas
Further evolution
Erfüllungspolitik
After the signing of the
Gustav Stresemann
By paving the way for other politicians, such as
In October 1925, the
Decline of the Social Democrats
The refusal to admit the collapse of the German army gave way to the stab-in-the-back myth, which alleged that the government formed by the socialists betrayed the army by signing the armistice while still in a state of combat. German nationalism, incarnated by the defeated military, did not recognize the legitimacy of the Weimar Republic.[54] This legend weakened the Social Democratic Party through slander campaigns based on various allegations: namely, that the SDP not only betrayed the army and Germany by signing the armistice, but also repressed the Spartacist uprising, proclaimed the republic, and refused (for some of its members) to vote for war credits in 1914. Hindenburg spoke of the "division and relaxation of the will to victory"[s] driven by internal party interests. Socialists are labeled, the "Vaterlandslose" ("the homeless"). Hindenburg continued to emphasize the innocence of the army, stating: "The good core of the Army is not to blame. Its performance is as admirable as that of the officer corps.[56][t]
This slander had electoral consequences for the Social Democrats. In the 1920 election, the percentage of SPD seats in the Reichstag was 21.6 per cent, down from 38 per cent in 1919. Right-wing parties gradually gained ground, such as the German National People's Party (DNVP), which won 15.1 per cent of the seats compared to only 10.3 per cent in 1919. For five years, the SPD was absent from all governments between 30 November 1923 and 29 June 1928. According to Jean-Pierre Gougeon, the decline of the SPD was due to the fact that it had not sufficiently democratized the country since the proclamation of the Weimar Republic.[57] Judges, civil servants and high-ranking civil servants had not been replaced, and they often remained loyal to the emperor, all the more so since military propaganda blamed the republic for his abdication.
Rise of the National Socialists
Fabian foresaw the consequences that the war guilt question could have for the rise of extremism, which had been awakened in Germany as early as 1920 with the creation of the Nazi Party (NSDAP), which would make the Treaty of Versailles and the question of responsibility its trademark issue: "But the war guilt question can also lead to the poisoning of relations between peoples, it can become a weapon forged for the hand of international nationalism."[u][58]
The Working Committee of German Associations gave its support to Adolf Hitler as early as 1936,[59] in particular through its president, Heinrich Schnee, for whom the "rescue of the fatherland" required "the joint action of all parties on national soil, including the NSDAP".[59]
From the second point of the NSDAP's 25-point program, Adolf Hitler demanded that the German people be treated in the same way as other nations and demanded the abrogation of the Treaties of Versailles and of Saint-Germain-en-Laye.[60] For him, "all German laws are nothing more than the anchoring of the peace treaties".[v][61] Hitler took part in the war and was very much marked by the military collapse. Antisemitism also made its appearance as did attacks against personalities of Jewish origin, such as the one against Walther Rathenau or Maximilian Harden in 1922.[62] Hyperinflation due to reparations, the economic downturn after the
The war guilt issue strengthened right-wing extremist movements and led to a radicalization of German society and eventually to the fall of the Weimar Republic.
National Socialism
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Adolf Hitler claimed in Mein Kampf in 1925 that all Germans had been for the war:[63]
The fight of the year 1914 was certainly not forced upon the masses, good God! but desired by the entire people.[w]
Nevertheless, he saw the initiative for the world war on the side of the Entente, so that the German war guilt for him consisted in the failure of a preventive war:[64]
The fault of the German government was that, in order to keep the peace, it always missed the favorable hours for striking out, got entangled in the alliance for the preservation of world peace and thus finally became the victim of a world coalition, which precisely opposed the pressure for the preservation of world peace with a resolute determination in favor of world war.[x]
In 1930, the Reichstag faction of the Nazi party demanded, as an amendment to the
After the
Neither the Kaiser, nor the government, nor the people wanted this war.[ab]
— Adolf Hitler
Alfred von Wegerer quoted Hitler's statement in the Berliner Monatshefte in December 1934 and linked it to the expectation that at last the "honor of the nation", which had been "most grievously violated" by the Treaty of Versailles, would be "fully restored".[67]
Under the new political guidelines, German historians no longer asked about war guilt but about the politically necessary steps to effectively prevent a new world war allegedly imposed from outside. Julius Hashagen wrote retrospectively about the Berliner Monatshefte in 1934: "... under the masterful and meritorious leadership of the journal and its staff," German war guilt research had made "considerable progress". Most military historians employed at the Reich Archives welcomed the suppression of the war guilt question in favor of the military war historiography that began in 1934,[68] but the Nazi regime's measures, which they had initially welcomed, were soon directed against some of the historians associated with the journal.[69]
On 30 January 1937, Hitler revoked the German signature to the "war guilt article" 231 of the Treaty of Versailles. On 30 January 1939 he justified his war policy in the Reichstag with the announcement:[70]
I want to be a prophet again today: If international financial Jewry inside and outside of Europe should succeed once more in plunging the peoples of the world into a war, the result would not be the Bolshevization of the earth and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.
In the early summer of 1940, the Nazi regime presented the rapid conquest of Belgium and France as the true end of the First World War, transforming the defeat of 1918 into a delayed victory. Liberal historians like Friedrich Meinecke also hailed the victories as a personal gratification.[71]
In other countries
The public media battle didn't wait for the end of the war in countries involved in the war. As their armies began to clash, the opposing governments engaged in a media battle attempting to avoid blame for causing the war, and casting blame on other countries, through the publication of carefully selected documents, basically consisting of diplomatic exchanges, selected and ordered to cast them in the best light possible. Sometimes, according to other combatants, they were misleading, or even falsified.
France
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France's war propaganda, which since 1914 had seen the country as long threatened by Germany and finally attacked under a pretext, initially continued to have the same effect after the end of the war: the official view of history was shaped by works such as the Senate Report by Émile Bourgeois and Georges Pagès [fr] or former prime minister Raymond Poincaré's document How the 1914 War Broke Out.[77][ae]
France's government under Georges Clemenceau had insisted in 1919 on the contractual establishment of sole guilt on the part of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The payment of reparations for war damage incurred and the permanent weakening of the arch-enemy were the principal motives of this attitude, and were taken up by the public: '"The Krauts will pay for everything!"[af][78] This was perceived by the French public not only as a justification for reparations, but also as a demonstrative statement of political and moral guilt.[79] The Socialists, too, saw only a partial responsibility[ag] on the part of the French in the war and also insisted on Germany's civil liability under Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles.
When Germany was about to be admitted to the
At the
Great Britain
Until about 1955, the British debate on war guilt fluctuated between a determination of Germany's sole guilt and an equal share of war guilt, or innocence, of all the powers involved. The change in historical viewpoint was strongly influenced by current policies toward Germany.[88]
In the summer of 1914, opinions on war guilt in Britain were in part critical of the government and pacifist, partly fatalist or
Analogous to the German document collections, eleven volumes of British Documents on the Origin of the war 1898-1914 were published in Britain from 1926 to 1938.[91] Germany's welcome entry into the League of Nations then triggered a turnaround. Now, British historians such as Paul Kennedy, Michael Howard, and Jonathan Steinberg took into account hitherto neglected economic, social-historical, and military-historical aspects as well as the role of Austria-Hungary. John Gooch, in Recent Revelations of European Diplomacy, denied that "anyone wanted the war at all." William H. Dawson, who shortly before had seen "German militarism" as the sole cause of the war, now singled out the Alliance system as the culprit. Raymond Beazley wrote as late as 1933:
Germany had not plotted the Great War, had not desired a war, and had made genuine, though belated and ill-organized efforts to avert it.
British historians mostly agreed with Fischer's main theses, but subsequently began a nuanced and critical examination of Britain's own responsibility for the First World War. For example, James Joll wrote the following in the introduction to Germany's Aims in the First World War, Carlisle A. Macartney's translation of Fischer's Griff nach der Weltmacht:[94]
Although Fischer's work reinforces the assumption that German leaders bore the greatest portion of responsibility for the outbreak and prolongation of World War I, it obliges British historians all the more to look again at the British government's share.[clarification needed]
— James Joll, in Britische Historiker und der Ausbruch des Ersten Weltkriegs
In 1999, the Scottish historian Niall Ferguson argued in his book The Pity of War[95] that the world war was avoidable with the crisis management available to European diplomacy at the time, and that only Britain's entry into the war escalated it to a pan-European war. The arms race in fleet construction was exacerbated by several things, including the 1905 British decision to build large battleships, a 1911 meeting of British generals, admirals, and government, and a lack of British willingness to negotiate.[96]
As soon as Germany was no longer considered its number one military and economic competitor, British policy sought alliances with France and Russia. The British maneuvering first created illusions of British neutrality on the German side, then fears of encirclement, and thus strengthened Germany's readiness for war. Britain's alliance policy had forced Germany to go to war after the Russian general mobilization.[97] He denied a significant role of militarism and imperialism as a factor, as well as any significant opposition of colonial interests between Germany and Great Britain.[98]
However, these theses were mostly rejected despite praise for their economic analyses.
Military historian John Keegan also saw World War I in 1999 as caused not by deliberate action on the part of the powers but by the fatal automatism of the alliances:[100]
The First World War was a tragic and unnecessary conflict. Unnecessary because the train of events that led to its outbreak might have been broken at any point during the five weeks of crisis that preceded the first clash of arms.[100][ah]
— John Keegan, The First World War, Chapter One: A European Tragedy
Like
According to John Leslie, the real authors of the war were not to be sought solely in Berlin, as the Fritz Fischer school had always maintained, but also in Vienna.[ai] In his view, a group of "hawks" in the Austrian Foreign Ministry had unleashed the war.[102] The Scottish military historian Hew Strachan emphasizes the economic competition between Germany and England, Germany's isolation in foreign policy, and what he sees as a disastrous effect of the policy of alliances:[103]
Numerical inferiority and geographic location meant that in the event of war, Germany could not simply remain on the defensive: It had to act decisively and attack. ... Maintaining and breaking alliances became an end in itself, more important than keeping the peace. Consequently, no state bore particular guilt in 1914.[aj]
— Hew Strachan, Wer war schuld? – Wie es zum Ersten Weltkrieg kam. [Who was to blame? - How the First World War came about.]
According to Paul W. Schroeder, the German fears of encirclement in 1914 were based on reality and resulted from a lack of willingness on the part of Germany and Austria-Hungary to carry out social and political reforms:[104]
Consensus historians recognize further that Germany, already in 1914 largely isolated diplomatically and threatened with encirclement by the Triple Entente, faced an imminent future threat, that once Russia had completed its announced plans for military expansion, scheduled for completion by 1917, the German army would be numerically as decisively inferior to those of its opponents as the German navy already was on the sea. […] Thus in both cases the supposedly counterproductive and dangerous foreign policies of Germany and Austria-Hungary culminating in their gamble in 1914 are linked to a wider problem and at least partly explained by it: the failure or refusal of their regimes to reform and modernize in order to meet their internal political and social problems.
— Paul W Schroeder, Embedded counterfactuals and World War I as an unavoidable war
Australian historian Christopher Clark also disagreed in his 2012 study The Sleepwalkers.[105]
All [major European powers] thought they were acting under outside pressure. All of them thought that the war was being forced on them by their opponents. However, all of them made decisions that contributed to the escalation of the crisis. To that extent, they all bear responsibility, not just Germany.
— Interview with Christopher Clark: Der Griff nach der Weltmacht, in: Die Zeit, 12 September 2013, p. 22
Soviet Union
Following Lenin's theory of imperialism, the Soviet Union's state-imposed view of history assigned the blame for the war to all "capitalist states" and allowed scarcely any independent research into the causes of the war. Beginning in about 1925, attempts were made to exonerate the tsarist system from the central blame that imperial German and Weimar era nationalist historians had assigned to it.[106] To facilitate the view, the Soviet Union published files from the tsarist archives.
Soviet historian Igor Bestushev disputed the attempt at national exoneration and stated in opposition to Fritz Fischer:[107]
The examination of the facts shows, on the contrary, that the policy of all the Great Powers, including Russia, objectively led to the World War. The responsibility for the war is borne by the ruling circles of all the Great Powers without exception, notwithstanding the fact that the governments of Germany and Austria, which initiated the war, displayed greater activity because Germany was better prepared for war and Austria's internal crisis was steadily worsening, and notwithstanding the additional fact that the decision on the timing of the war was for all practical purposes ultimately taken by Germany and England.
Marxism's models for explaining guilt for the war assign a major part of the blame for its outbreak to economic factors and big banks. In 1976 Reinhold Zilch criticized the "clearly aggressive aims of Reichsbank President Rudolf Havenstein on the eve of war",[108] while in 1991 Willibald Gutsche argued that in 1914, "in addition to the coal and steel monopolists, [...] influential representatives of the big banks and electrical and shipping monopolies were also not inclined towards peace".[109]
This view is disputed by individual studies on the concrete behavior of the business community before the war. Nevertheless, economic interests and structures are also recognized as a factor in the war by historians researching traditional diplomatic history (e.g. Imanuel Geiss).[110]
United States
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Academic work in the English-speaking world in the later 1920s and 1930s, blamed the participants more or less equally. In the early 1920s, several American historians opposed to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles such as Sidney Bradshaw Fay, Charles A. Beard and Harry Elmer Barnes produced works that claimed that Germany was not responsible for war. Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles, which had seemingly assigned all responsibility for the war to Germany and thus justified the Allied claim to reparations, was invalid.[111] A feature of American "revisionist" historians of the 1920s was a tendency to treat Germany as a victim of the war and the Allies as the aggressors.[112] The objective of Fay and Barnes was to put an end to reparations imposed on Germany, by attempting to prove what they regarded as the moral invalidity of Article 231. The exiled Wilhelm praised Barnes upon meeting him in 1926. According to Barnes, Wilhelm "was happy to know that I did not blame him for starting the war in 1914. He disagreed with my view that Russia and France were chiefly responsible. He held that the villains of 1914 were the international Jews and Free Masons who, he alleged, desired to destroy national states and the Christian religion."[113]
The German Foreign Ministry lavished special "care" upon the efforts of both Fay and Barnes with generous use of the German archives, and in the case of Barnes, research funds provided by the German government.
Austria
For Emperor
"We started the war, not the Germans and even less the Entente," was the assessment of
Chancellor Karl Renner, who headed the Austrian negotiating delegation to St. Germain in 1919, took a similar view: The delegation made a confession of war guilt.[117]
German historian and expert on the July Crisis Annika Mombauer agrees with this, but also sees Germany as responsible: "...the main part of the responsibility for the outbreak of the war must still be situated in the decisions of Austria-Hungary and Germany".[118]
Post-World War II
West Germany
After the fall of the Nazi regime, conservative historians from the time of the Weimar Republic dominated the debates in West Germany by spreading the same theses as before.[119] For example, Gerhard Ritter wrote that "A politico-military situation held our diplomacy prisoner at the time of the great world crisis of July 1914."[120]
In Die deutsche Katastrophe, Friedrich Meinecke supports the same idea. Foreign research, such as that of the Italian Luigi Albertini, is not taken into account. In his three-volume critical work, published in 1942-1943 (Le origini della guerra del 1914), Albertini comes to the conclusion that all European governments had a share of responsibility in the outbreak of the war, while pointing to German pressure on Austria-Hungary as the decisive factor in the latter's bellicose behaviour in Serbia.[citation needed]
In September 1949, Ritter, who became the first president of the Union of German Historians [fr; de] stated in his opening statement that the fight against the war guilt question at the time of the Weimar Republic finally led to the worldwide success of German theses,[121] which he still maintained in his 1950 essay: "The German thesis that there could be no question of a long-prepared invasion of their neighbours by the Central Powers soon became generalized within the huge international specialist research community."[122]
Fischer controversy
The Hamburg historian Fritz Fischer was the first to research all accessible archive holdings according to the war aims of the Central Powers before and during the war. In October 1959 his essay about German war objectives was published.[123] Hans Herzfeld's [de] response in Historischen Zeitschrift (Historical Journal) marked the beginning of a controversy that lasted until about 1985 and permanently changed the national conservative consensus on the question of war guilt.
Fischer's book
Given that Germany wanted, desired and covered up the Austrian-Serbian war and, trusting in German military superiority, deliberately chose to enter into conflict with Russia and France in 1914, the German Imperial leadership bears a considerable part of the historical responsibility for the outbreak of a general war.
Initially, right-wing conservative authors such as
After a battle of speeches lasting several hours at the 1964 Historians' Day, Fischer's main rival
German-American historian
Since around 1970, Fischer's work has stimulated increased research into the socio-economic causes of war. These include the orientation toward a war economy, the imperial monarchy's inability to reform domestic policy, and domestic competition over resources.
Contemporary research
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Since
Thomas Nipperdey contradicted sociohistorical explanations in 1991 with his view that the "war, the German readiness for war and the crisis policy" were not a consequence of the German social system. He modified Lloyd George's "slide into war" thesis and referred to disastrous military plans and war decisions of the executive even in parliamentary states.[135]
Since the Fischer controversy died down, according to Jürgen Kocka (2003)[136] and Gerhard Hirschfeld (2004),[71] Germany's decisive contribution to the outbreak of war in 1914 has been widely acknowledged, but explained in a more differentiated way than by Fischer also from the pan-European power constellations and crisis situations before 1914[clarify]. Gerd Krumeich [fr; de] wrote in 2003 that Germany had largely sabotaged efforts at diplomatic deescalation and therefore bore a large share of the blame.[137]
2013 saw the publication of Christopher Clark's The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914, and Herfried Münkler, The Great War. The World 1914 to 1918 [de], two works that disputed whether Germany contributed any more to the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 through its actions or inactions than the other great powers did. Since their appearance, the debate has once again been considered open, according to some scholars.[138]
More recent publications by and large stick to the earlier view, namely that Germany contributed significantly to the fact "that as the crisis widened, alternative strategies for de-escalation did not bear fruit ... Given Germany's policy until 23 July to exert pressure on the Viennese government to take advantage of the situation and to deal with the Serbs, Germany undoubtedly did have a special responsibility".[139] In contrast to Christopher Clark's view, Gerd Krumeich, John C. G. Röhl, and Annika Mombauer summed up the situation as[clarify] the Central Powers bearing primary responsibility for the outbreak of the war, even if it could not be blamed on them alone.[140][141][118]
The public debate on longer-term causes of the war continues. Today, it relates primarily to the following topics:
- the question of political room for maneuver, or the inevitability of rearmament and the policy of alliances before the war. With this question, the earlier classification of the era as imperialist became more varied and nuanced. In most cases, the common culpability of all European hegemonic powers is highlighted, without diminishing the triggering moves by Germany and Austria.
- the role of domestic politics, social tensions, and economic interests in the escalation of foreign policy among all participating states
- the role of mob mentality and war experiences and their interaction with war propaganda. This is addressed in the Bruno Thoss essay.[142]
- the role of military leaders and military interests that scuttled efforts to de-escalate and to negotiate a peace.
- the question of a possible German Sonderweginto the 20th century
- the question of influential factors that possibly made the First World War the necessary conditions and preparatory groundwork for the Second World War and its crimes and significantly contributed to the outbreak and course of the Second World War: Thus, many speak of the "Great seminal catastrophe of the 20th century";[ak] Raymond Aron sees both world wars as a new "Thirty Years' War".
Anne Lipp's Meinungslenkung im Krieg [143] (Shaping Opinion in War) analyzed how soldiers, military leaders, and wartime propaganda reacted to the front-line experience of mass destruction. Attempts had been made to refute doubts about the defensive character of the war by placing it in an aggressive-nationalist context. "Fatherland Instruction" [de][al] offered front-line soldiers heroic images for identification, in order to redirect their horror, and their fears of death and defeat into the opposite of what they had experienced. To the "homeland," the "front-line fighters" were held up as role models to prevent insubordination, desertion, public agitation against a war of conquest, and maintaining solidarity of soldiers and civilians against it. This had created a persistent, mass mentality that set the course for the postwar success of war-glorifying myths such as the stab-in-the-back myth.[144]
In 2002, the historians
See also
- Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles
- Austria victim theory
- Causes of World War I
- American entry into World War I
- Austro-Hungarian entry into World War I
- British entry into World War I
- French entry into World War I
- German entry into World War I
- Italian entry into World War I
- Japanese entry into World War I
- Ottoman entry into World War I
- Russian entry into World War I
- History of the Balkans
- Paris Peace Conference, 1919
- Centre for the Study of the Causes of the War
- Commission of Responsibilities
- European Civil War
- German collective guilt
- Germany's Aims in the First World War
- Historiography of Germany
- Historiography of the causes of World War I
- International relations (1814–1919)
- International relations (1919–1939)
- Manifesto of the Ninety-Three
- Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920)
- Propaganda in World War I
- "War of Illusions"
- World War I reparations
References
Notes
- ^ For example, the translator of Alfred von Wegerer's Widerlegung der Versailler kriegsschuldthese chose Versailles war guilt thesis in the title of the English version of the book.[3]
- ^ Clemenceau: ""L'heure est venue du lourd règlement de comptes."
- ^ Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau, speaking to the Allies at Versailles in 1919: "Mais aussi dans la manière de faire la guerre l'Allemagne n'a pas commis seule des fautes, chaque nation en a commis. Je ne veux pas répondre aux reproches par des reproches, mais, si on nous demande de faire amende honorable, il ne faut pas oublier l'armistice."
- ^ Working Group for a Policy of Justice: "Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Politik des Rechts"; also known as the Heidelberger Vereinigung ("Heidelberg Association")
- ^ a b Kriegsschuldlüge, literally: "war guilt lie"
- ^ a b culpable individuals: "Kriegsschuldigen"
- ^ Theodor Schieder: "Die Forschung war im Ursprung geradezu eine Fortsetzung des Krieges mit anderen Mitteln."
- ^ Arbeitsausschuss Deutscher Verbände: not to be confused with the Vereinigte Vaterländische Verbände Deutschlands. [de])
- ^ Ströbel quotation: Nein, man ist in Deutschland noch weit ab von jeder Erkenntnis. Wie man das Schuldbekenntnis verweigert, so verweigert man auch dem guten Willen der Andern verstockt den Glauben. Man sieht noch immer nur die Gier, die Ränke, die Arglist der Andern, und die belebendste Hoffnung ist, daß dereinst der Tag komme, der diese dunklen Mächte den eigenen Interessen dienstbar mache. Noch haben die heute Regierenden nichts aus dem Weltkrieg gelernt, noch beherrscht sie der alte Wahn, der alte Machtwahn.
- ^ Kurt Tucholsky in 1919: Die Völker haben keinen Krieg gewollt, kein Volk hat ihn gewollt; durch die Borniertheit, Fahrlässigkeit und Böswilligkeit der Diplomaten ist es zu diesem »dümmsten aller Kriege« gekommen.
- ^ Europe's downfall: "Europas Verhängnis".[36]
- ^ Fabian: "Ausdruck der scharfen Spannung, die seit einer Reihe von Jahren zwischen Österreich-Ungarn herrschte."
- ^ William II: "Mit den Serben muss aufgeräumt werden und zwar bald.".
- ^ Fabian: "Österreich wollte die Nichtannahme des Ultimatums, Deutschland, das laut Tirpitz bereits am 13. Juli die wichtigsten Punkte kannte, wollte das gleiche."
- ^ Original from Fabian (1926): "Auch in Deutschland entschied nur noch der militärische Gesichtspunkt."
- ^ Original from Fabian (1926): "In jedem anderen Staate waren Militär und Marine nichts als Instrumente der auswärtigen Politik. In dem militarisierten Deutschland hatten sie eine Sonderstellung, waren sie, seit Bismarck ihnen nicht mehr im Wege stand, mächtiger als ein Reichskanzler und weit beliebter als alle Diplomatie."
- ^
Patriotic Auxiliary Service: in German: Vaterländische Hilfsdienst; see the Auxiliary Services Act (1916)which established it.
- ^
Erfüllungspolitiker: politicians advocating Erfüllungspolitik: the politics of appeasement; that is, Germans who tried to make do with the harsh requirements of the Treaty of Versailles.
- ^ "Spaltung und Lockerung des Siegeswillens".[55]
- ^ Hindenburg: "Den guten Kern des Heers trifft keine Schuld. Seine Leistung ist ebenso bewunderungswürdig wie die des Offizierkorps."
- ^ Fabian: "Aber die Kriegsschuldfrage kann auch zu einer Vergiftung der Völkerbeziehungen führen, kann zu einer Waffe in der Hand des internationalen Nationalismus umgeschmiedet werden."
- ^ Hitler, in NSDAP 25-point program: "...die gesamte deutsche Gesetzgebung nichts anderes als eine Verankerung der Friedensverträgereference."
- ^ "The fight of the year 1914:" Der Kampf des Jahres 1914 wurde den Massen, wahrhaftiger Gott, nicht aufgezwungen, sondern von dem gesamten Volke selbst begehrt.
- ^ Die Schuld der deutschen Regierung war dabei, daß sie, um den Frieden nur ja zu erhalten, die günstigen Stunden des Losschlagens immer versäumte, sich in das Bündnis zur Erhaltung des Weltfriedens verstrickte und so endlich das Opfer einer Weltkoalition wurde, die eben dem Drang nach Erhaltung des Weltfriedens die Entschlossenheit zum Weltkrieg entgegenstemmte.
- ^ Law for the Protection of the Republic: Originally passed in July 1922 after the assassination of Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau by right-wing extremists, the law set up special courts to address politically motivated violence, and established severe penalties for political murders, and government authority to ban extremist groups.[65]
- ^ "Military treason": from Wehrverrat, a non-existent word in German, and used in quotation marks in German text where it appears, but readily understandable as a compound noun.
- ^ Führerwort: sayings of the Führer; these more or less had the force of law.
- ^ Weder der Kaiser, noch die Regierung, noch das Volk haben diesen Krieg gewollt.
- ^ German title of the White Book was: "Das Deutsche Weißbuch über den Ausbruch des deutsch-russisch-französischen Krieges" ("The German White Book about the Outbreak of the German-Russian-French War").
- ^ The German White Book was translated and published in English the same year.
- ^ Title of Poincaré's text: Comment fut déclarée la Guerre de 1914[77]
- bochepayera tout.'
- ^ responsabilité partagée
- ^ Opening lines of John Keegan's First World War: "The First World War was a tragic and unnecessary conflict. Unnecessary because the train of events that led to its outbreak might have been broken at any point during the five weeks of crisis that preceded the first clash of arms had prudence or common goodwill found a voice; tragic because the consequences of the first clash ended the lives of ten million human beings, tortured the emotional lives of millions more, destroyed the benevolent and optimistic culture of the European continent and left, when the guns at last fell silent four years later, a legacy of political rancor and racial hatred so intense that no explanation of the causes of the Second World War can stand without reference to those roots."
- ^ "Leslie quotation "The real authors of the war..." is a back-translation from German in Melville (1988): "die eigentlichen Urheber des Kriegs nicht nur in Berlin, wie die Fritz-Fischer-Schule immer behauptet hat, sondern auch in Wien zu suchen"
- ^ "Numerical inferiority and geographic location..." is a back-translation from German in Burgdorf & Wiegrefe (2004): "Zahlenmäßige Unterlegenheit und geografische Lage bedeuteten, dass im Kriegsfall Deutschland nicht einfach in der Defensive bleiben konnte: Es musste entschlossen handeln und angreifen. […] Der Erhalt und das Zerbrechen von Allianzen wurden zum Selbstzweck, wichtiger als die Wahrung des Friedens. Folglich trug 1914 kein Staat besondere Schuld."
- ^ George Kennan: who called World War I "the great seminal catastrophe of this century"
- ^ During the First World War, the term Fatherland Instruction [de] (Fatherland Instruction) was used to describe the propagandistic influence exerted both on German soldiers as well as on the home front to promote the views and goals of the Supreme Army Command (Oberste Heeresleitung). The primary aim was to strengthen the will to persevere in the face of the increasingly difficult military and economic situation from 1916 on.
- ^ Flight forward: "Flucht nach vorn"
Citations
- ^ Thoss 1994, p. 1012-1039.
- ^ Traverso 2017, PT35.
- ^ a b von Wegerer 1930.
- ^ "World War I – Killed, wounded, and missing". Encyclopedia Britannica. 10 May 2023.
- ^ Keegan 1998, p. 8.
- ^ Binkley & Mahr 1926, p. 399–400.
- ^ Morrow 2005, p. 290.
- ^ "Aftermath of World War I and the Rise of Nazism, 1918–1933 - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum". www.ushmm.org. Retrieved 30 January 2024.
- ^ Treaty 1919, p. 1.
- ^ Wehler 2003, p. 245.
- ^ Longerich 1992, p. 142.
- ^ a b c Longerich 1992, p. 100.
- ^ "TREATY OF PEACE WITH GERMANY (TREATY OF VERSAILLES)" (PDF). United States Census Burau. Retrieved 30 January 2024.
- ^ Draeger 1934, p. 122.
- ^ Treaty 1919, p. 3.
- ^ Löwe 2000, p. [page needed].
- ^ Geiss 1978b, p. 205.
- ^ a b Draeger 1934, p. 121.
- ^ Wittgens 1980, p. 229–237.
- ^ Mombauer 2013, p. 53.
- ^ "Verhandlungen des Deutschen Reichstages: 84. Sitzung der Nationalversammlung vom 20. August 1919" [Proceedings of the German Reichstag: 84th Session of the National Assembly from 20 August 1919]. Reichstagsprotokolle (in German). 20 August 1919. p. 2798. Retrieved 19 February 2023.
- ^ Heilfron, Eduard, ed. (1921). Die Deutsche Nationalversammlung im Jahre 1919 in ihrer Arbeit für den Aufbau des neuen deutschen Volksstaates [The German National Assembly in 1919 in its Work for the Establishment of the New German People's State] (in German). Berlin: Norddeutsche Buchdruckerei und Verlagsanstalt. pp. 150–153.
- OCLC 915569817.
- ^ a b Mombauer 2013, p. 51.
- ^ Geiss 1978a, p. 105[verification needed].
- ^ Frie 2004, p. 83.
- ^ Altmann & Scriba 2014.
- ^ Wittgens 1980, p. 229, 232–233.
- ^ Wittgens 1980, p. 235-237.
- ^ Ackermann 2004.
- ^ Tucholsky, Kurt. "Tucholsky - Krieg: Juli 14 - Emil Ludwig (Kritiken und Rezensionen)" [Tucholsy - War: Juli 14 - Emil Ludwig (Reviews and critiques)] (in German).
- ^ Strutynski, Peter (9 August 2000). "Vom Offizier zum Pazifisten Von Wolfram Wette (Freiburg)" [From Officer to Pacifist by Wolfram Wette (Freiburg)]. Uni Kassel (in German). Archived from the original on 24 October 2008.
- ^ Fabian 1926.
- ^ König & Odierna 2021, p. 68.
- ^ a b Fabian 1926, p. 20.
- ^ Isaac 1933, p. 26-27.
- ^ Fabian 1926, p. 46.
- ^ Fabian 1926, p. 43.
- ^ Fabian 1926, p. 68.
- ^ Fabian 1926, p. 73.
- ^ Von Mises 1944, p. 63.
- ^ Fabian 1926, p. 278.
- ^ Pawly 2012, p. 18.
- ^ a b Poidevin 1972, p. 206.
- ^ Ludendorff 1919, p. 553.
- ^ von Thaer 1958, p. 234.
- ^ a b Poidevin 1972, p. 207.
- ^ Krüger 1985, p. 132.
- ^ Krüger 1985, p. 133.
- ^ Poidevin 1972, p. 269.
- ^ Rovan 1999, p. 596.
- ^ Krüger 1985, p. 213.
- ^ Von Mises 1944, p. 268.
- ^ Longerich 1992, p. 134.
- ^ Longerich 1992, p. 135.
- ^ Gougeon 1996, p. 226.
- ^ Fabian 1926, p. 18.
- ^ a b Heinemann 1983, p. 152.
- ^ Longerich 1992, p. 160.
- ^ Longerich 1992, p. 431.
- ^ Rovan 1999, p. 717.
- ^ GHDI & Hitler 2003.
- ^ Hitler 1925, p. 176.
- ^ a b Jackisch 2016, p. 148.
- ^ Bade 1933, p. 41.
- ^ von Wegerer 1934, p. 1.
- ^ Ackermann 2004a.
- ^ Kracht 2004.
- ^ Brandenburgische Landeszentrale für politische Bildung 1995, p. 117.
- ^ a b Hirschfeld 2004.
- ^ Schmitt 1937.
- ^ a b NatArch-UK.
- ^ Kempe 2008, vol.7, p.18.
- ^ Kempe 2008, vol.7, p.19.
- ^ Beer 1915, p. 16.
- ^ a b Poincaré 1939.
- ^ Krumeich 1994, p. 913 ff..
- ^ Frie 2004, p. 82.
- ^ Krumeich 1994, p. 920-926.
- ^ Krumeich 1994.
- ^ France & 1936-10.
- ^ France & 1936-11.
- ^ Hayne 1993.
- ^ Schmidt 2014.
- ^ Soutou 1994, p. 228.
- ^ Ferro 2003.
- ^ von Strandmann 1994, p. 930.
- ^ Rössler 1958, Kriegsschuldfrage.
- ^ von Strandmann 1994, p. 930 ff.
- ^ Gooch & Temperley 1926.
- ^ Cline 1988, p. 50.
- ^ Beazley 1932, p. 86.
- ^ von Strandmann 1994, p. 393 ff.
- ^ Ferguson 1999.
- ^ Ferguson & Kochmann 1999, p. 110[page needed].
- ^ Ferguson & Kochmann 1999, p. 89 ff[page needed].
- ^ Ferguson & Kochmann 1999, p. 49, 74, 80, 86[page needed].
- ^ Kühne 2007.
- ^ a b Keegan 2012, p. 3.
- ^ von Strandmann 1994, p. 994 ff.
- ^ Leslie 1988, p. 662.
- ^ Strachan 2004, p. 244, 246.
- ^ Schroeder 2016, p. 159.
- ^ Clark 2013.
- ^ Bestuschew 1967, pp. 150 f.
- ^ Bestuschew 1967, p. 151.
- ^ Zilch 1987, p. 79.
- ^ Gutsche 1991, p. 84.
- ^ Geiss 1978c, p. 28–52.
- ^ a b c d Herwig 1997, p. 153–159.
- ^ Lipstadt 1994, p. 32–33.
- ^ Lipstadt 1994, p. 26.
- ^ Vocelka 2015, p. 273.
- ^ Mombauer 2014, p. 33.
- ^ Mombauer 2014, p. 39.
- ^ Rössler 1958, p. 1105.
- ^ a b Mombauer 2014, p. 117.
- ^ Geiss 1978a, p. 107.
- ^ Ritter 1960, p. 171.
- ^ Ritter 1950, p. 16.
- ^ Ritter 1950, p. 92.
- ^ Fischer 1959.
- ^ Fischer 1971.
- ^ Fischer 1971, p. 97.
- ^ Köster, Freimut (22 September 2004). "Unterrichtsmaterial zur Fischer-Kontroverse" [Teaching materials on the Fischer Controversy] (in German). Berlin: Humboldt University.
- ^ Geiss (1963), cited in: Gasser (1985), p. 2.
- ^ Hillgruber & Hillgruber 1979, pp. 56f.
- ^ Ritter 1964, p. 15.
- ^ Epstein, Klaus. "Review: German War Aims in the First World War," World Politics, Volume 15, Issue #1, (October 1962), p. 170.
- ^ Mommsen 2004, p. 118.
- ^ Mommsen 1990, p. 211.
- ^ Thoss 1994, p. 1021.
- ^ Mommsen 1969, p. 284-287.
- ^ Nipperdey 1990.
- ^ Kocka 2004, p. 8, 11.
- ^ Hirschfeld 2003, Kriegsschuldfrage.
- ^ Cornelißen 2014, p. 272-279.
- ^ Leonhard 2014, p. 94 ff..
- ^ Krumeich 2013, p. 184.
- ^ Röhl 2014, p. 9.
- ^ Thoss 1994.
- ^ Lipp 2003.
- ^ Book review of Anne Lipp's Meinungslenkung im Krieg [Shaping Opinion in War], in Ackermann (2004)
- ^ Book review of Volker Berghahn's Der Erste Weltkrieg ("The First World War"), in Ackermann (2004a)
Works cited
- Ackermann, Volker (13 May 2004). "Sammelrez: Literaturbericht: 'Erster Weltkrieg' - H-Soz-u-Kult / Rezensionen / Bücher" [Omnibus review: Literature report: 'First World War' - H-Soz-u-Cult / Reviews / Books] (PDF). H-Soz-u-Kult (in German). Berlin: Clio-online. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 August 2005. Retrieved 30 September 2020.
- Ackermann, Volker (13 May 2004a). Markus Pöhlmann: Kriegsgeschichte und Geschichtspolitik: Der Erste Weltkrieg. Die amtliche Militärgeschichtsschreibung 1914–1956 (Rezension) [Markus Pöhlmann: History of War and Historical Politics: The First World War. Official Military Historiography 1914–1956 (review)] (in German). Hamburger Ed. )
- Altmann, Gerhard; Scriba, Arnulf (14 September 2014). "LeMO Kapitel - Weimarer Republik - Innenpolitik - Kriegsschuldreferat" [Weimar Republic Domestic policy - War Guilt Section]. Deutsches Historisches Museum (in German).
- Bade, Wilfrid (1933). Geschichte des dritten reiches (in German). Vol. 1. 1933, das Jahr der Revolution. Lübeck: C. Coleman. OCLC 719076014.
- Beazley, Charles Raymond (Sir) (1932). The Road to ruin in Europe, 1890-1914. Dent. p. 86.
...she [Germany] had not plotted the Great War, had not desired a war, and had made genuine, though belated and ill-organized efforts to avert it.
- Beer, Max (1915). "Das Regenbogen-Buch": deutsches Wiessbuch, österreichisch-ungarisches Rotbuch, englisches Blaubuch, französisches Gelbbuch, russisches Orangebuch, serbisches Blaubuch und belgisches Graubuch, die europäischen Kriegsverhandlungen [The Rainbow Book: German White Book, Austrian-Hungarian Red Book, English Blue Book, French Yellow Book, Russian Orange Book, Serbian Blue Book and Belgian Grey Book, the European war negotiations] (2nd, improved ed.). Bern: F. Wyss. pp. 16–. OCLC 9427935. Retrieved 4 October 2020.
- Bestuschew, Igor W. (1967). "Die russische Außenpolitik von Februar bis Juni 1914" [Russian Foreign Policy from February to June 1914]. Journal of Contemporary History (in German). 3. Munich: Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung: 150 f.
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Further reading
Pre-WW I events
- Jacques Benoist-Méchin, Histoire de l'Armée allemande, Robert Laffont, Paris, 1984. (in French)
- Volker Berghahn, Der Erste Weltkrieg (Wissen in der Beck´schen Reihe). C.H. Beck, München 2003, ISBN 3-406-48012-8(in German)
- Jean-Pierre Cartier, Der Erste Weltkrieg, Piper, München 1984. ISBN 3-492-02788-1(in German)
- Jacques Droz [fr; de], Les Causes de la Première Guerre mondiale. Essai d'historiographie, Paris, 1997. (in French)
- Niall Ferguson, Der falsche Krieg; DVA, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-421-05175-5(in German)
- Fischer, Fritz (1971) [1st pub: 1961]. Griff nach der Weltmacht : die Kriegszielpolitik des kaiserlichen Deutschland 1914/18 [Reaching for World Power : The War Aims Policy of Imperial Germany 1914/18] (in German) (3rd ed.). Dusseldorf: Droste. OCLC 1154200466..
- Fischer, Fritz (1970). Les Buts de guerre de l'Allemagne impériale (1914-1918) (in French). Translated by Geneviève Migeon et Henri Thiès (fr:Référence:Les Buts de guerre de l'Allemagne impériale (Fritz Fischer)#Trévise 1970 ed.). Paris: Éditions de Trévise.
- Imanuel Geiss, Der lange Weg in die Katastrophe, Die Vorgeschichte des Ersten Weltkrieges 1815–1914, Piper, München 1990, ISBN 3-492-10943-8(in German)
- James Joll, Gordon Martel: The Origins of the First World War Longman 2006, ISBN 0-582-42379-1(in English)
- ISBN 1-57392-301-X(in English)
- ISBN 3-10-048907-1(in German)
- ISBN 3-608-60017-5(in German)
- Sönke Neitzel, Kriegsausbruch. Deutschlands Weg in die Katastrophe 1900-1914, München 2002, ISBN 3-86612-043-5(in German)
- Pierre Renouvin, Les Buts de guerre du gouvernement français. 1914-1915, in Revue historique 1966
- Pierre Renouvin, Les Origines immédiates de la guerre, Paris, 1925
- Pierre Renouvin, La Crise européenne et la Grande Guerre, Paris, 1939
- Gerhard Ritter, Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk. Band 3: Die Tragödie der Staatskunst München, 1964 (in German)
- Volker Ullrich, Die nervöse Großmacht. Aufstieg und Untergang des deutschen Kaiserreichs 1871–1918, Frankfurt/Main (S. Fischer) 1997, ISBN 3-10-086001-2(in German)
Contemporary publications from the Weimar Republic
- Collectif (1919). Traité de Versailles 1919 [Treaty of Versailles 1919] (in French). Nancy: Librairie militaire Berger Levrault.
- Camille Bloch/Pierre Renouvin, « L'article 231 du traité de Versailles. Sa genèse et sa signification », in Revue d'Histoire de la Guerre mondiale, janvier 1932
- Draeger, Hans (1934). Anklage und Widerlegung. Taschenbuch zur Kriegsschuldfrage [Charge and rebuttal. Pocket edition on the question of war guilt.] (in German). Berlin: Arbeitsausschuss Deutscher Verbände. OCLC 934736076.
- Hajo Holborn, Kriegsschuld und Reparationen auf der Pariser Friedenskonferenz von 1919, B. G. Teubner, Leipzig/Berlin 1932 (in German)
- Heinrich Kanner, Der Schlüssel zur Kriegsschuldfrage, München 1926 (in German)
- Max Graf Montgelas, Leitfaden zur Kriegsschuldfrage, W. de Gruyter & co. Berlin/Leipzig 1923 (in German)
- fr:Mathias Morhardt, Die wahren Schuldigen. Die Beweise, das Verbrechen des gemeinen Rechts, das diplomatische Verbrechen, Leipzig 1925 (in German)
- Raymond Poincaré/René Gerin, Les Responsabilités de la guerre. Quatorze questions par René Gerin. Quatorze réponses par Raymond Poincaré., Payot, Paris, 1930
- Heinrich Ströbel, Der alte Wahn, dans : Weltbühne 8 mai 1919 (in German)
- Max Weber,Zum Thema der „Kriegsschuld", 1919; Zur Untersuchung der Schuldfrage, 1919 (in German)
Debate descriptions
- Fritz Dickmann, Die Kriegsschuldfrage auf der Friedenskonferenz von Paris 1919, München 1964 (Beiträge zur europäischen Geschichte 3) (in German)
- Michael Dreyer, Oliver Lembcke, Die deutsche Diskussion um die Kriegsschuldfrage 1918/19, Duncker & Humblot GmbH (1993), ISBN 3-428-07904-3(in German)
- Jacques Droz, L'Allemagne est-elle responsable de la Première Guerre mondiale ?, in L'Histoire, 72, November 1984
- Sidney B. Fay, The Origins of the World War, 2 Bände, New York 1929 (in English)
- Hermann Kantorowicz, Imanuel Geiss, Gutachten zur Kriegsschuldfrage 1914, Europäische Verlagsanstalt 1967, ASIN B0000BRV2R (in German)
- Hahn, Eric J. C.; Carole Fink; Isabell V. Hull; MacGregor Knox (1985). "The German Foreign Ministry and the Question of War Guilt in 1918–1919". German Nationalism and the European Response 1890–1945. London: Norman. pp. 43–70.
- Ulrich Heinemann (1983). Kritische Studien zur Geschichtswissenschaft (in German). Vol. 59. Die verdrängte Niederlage. Politische Öffentlichkeit und Kriegsschuldfrage in der Weimarer Republik. Gœttingue: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ISBN 978-3-647-35718-8.
- Georges-Henri Soutou, L'Or et le Sang. Les Buts de guerre économiques de la Première Guerre mondiale, Fayard, Paris, 1989
Fischer Controversy
- Volker Berghahn, "Die Fischer-Kontroverse - 15 Jahre danach", in: Geschichte und Gesellschaft 6 (1980), pp. 403–419. (in German)
- Geiss, Imanuel (1972). "Die Fischer-Kontroverse. Ein kritischer Beitrag zum Verhältnis zwischen Historiographie und Politik in der Bundesrepublik". In Geiss, Imanuel (ed.). Studien über Geschichte und Geschichtswissenschaft (in German). Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. pp. 108–198..
- Klaus Große Kracht, Die zankende Zunft. Historische Kontroversen in Deutschland nach 1945, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-525-36280-3(Recension de Manfred Kittel, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, München-Berlin) (in German)
- Wolfgang Jäger, Historische Forschung und politische Kultur in Deutschland. Die Debatte 1914–1980 über den Ausbruch des Ersten Weltkrieges, Göttingen 1984. (in German)
- Konrad H. Jarausch, Der nationale Tabubruch. Wissenschaft, Öffentlichkeit und Politik in der Fischer-Kontroverse, dans : Martin Sabrow, Ralph Jessen, Klaus Große Kracht (Hrsg.): Zeitgeschichte als Streitgeschichte. Große Kontroversen seit 1945, Beck 2003, ISBN 3406494730(in German)
- John Anthony Moses, The Politics of Illusion. The Fischer Controversy in German Historiography, London 1975 (Nachdruck 1985), ISBN 0702210404(in English)
- Gregor Schöllgen, Griff nach der Weltmacht? 25 Jahre Fischer-Kontroverse, dans : Historisches Jahrbuch 106 (1986), pp. 386–406. (in German)
- Matthew Stibbe, The Fischer Controversy over German War Aims in the First World War and its Reception by East German Historians, 1961–1989. Dans : The Historical Journal 46/2003, pp. 649–668. (in English)
Recent analyses
- Jean-Jacques Becker (2004). L'année 14 (in French). Paris: OCLC 300279286..
- Jean-Baptiste Duroselle (2003). La Grande Guerre des Français 1914-1918 (in French). Perrin.
- Stig Förster (dir.), An der Schwelle zum Totalen Krieg. Die militärische Debatte über den Krieg der Zukunft 1919–1939 (= Krieg in der Geschichte 13). Ferdinand Schöningh Verlag, Paderborn 2002, ISBN 3-506-74482-8(in German)
- Jürgen Förster, Geistige Kriegführung in Deutschland 1919-1945 (in German)
- David Fromkin et William-Oliver Desmond, Le Dernier Été de l'Europe : Qui a déclenché la Première Guerre mondiale ?, Paris, 2004 ISBN 978-2246620716
- Christoph Gnau, Die deutschen Eliten und der Zweite Weltkrieg, PapyRossa-Verlag, Köln 2007, ISBN 978-3-89438-368-8(in German)
- ISBN 978-2-7011-9534-6.
- Anne Lipp (2003). Meinungslenkung im Krieg. Kriegserfahrungen deutscher Soldaten und ihre Deutung 1914–1918 (in German). Gœttingue: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ISBN 3-525-35140-2.
- Markus Pöhlmann, Kriegsgeschichte und Geschichtspolitik: Der Erste Weltkrieg. Die amtliche Militärgeschichtsschreibung 1914–1956 (= Krieg in der Geschichte 12). Ferdinand Schöningh Verlag, Paderborn 2002, ISBN 3-506-74481-X(in German)
- Jörg Richter, Kriegsschuld und Nationalstolz. Politik zwischen Mythos und Realität, Katzmann, 2003 (in German)
- Bruno Thoß et Hans-Erich Volkmann (dir.), Erster Weltkrieg – Zweiter Weltkrieg: Ein Vergleich. Krieg, Kriegserlebnis, Kriegserfahrung in Deutschland. Ferdinand Schöningh Verlag, Paderborn 2002, ISBN 3-506-79161-3(in German)
Other aspects
- Gerhard Besier, Krieg - Frieden - Abrüstung. Die Haltung der europäischen und amerikanischen Kirchen zur Frage der deutschen Kriegsschuld 1914-1933, Göttingen 1982 (in German)
- Britta Bley, Wieviel Schuld verträgt ein Land? CD-ROM, Fachverlag für Kulturgeschichte und deren Vermittlung, Bielefeld 2005, ISBN 3-938360-00-3(in German)
- Germany. Auswärtiges Amt (1914). The German White-book: Authorized Translation. Documents Relating to the Outbreak of the War, with Supplements. Liebheit & Thiesen. OCLC 1158533. Retrieved 4 October 2020.
- Jörg Richter, Kriegsschuld und Nationalstolz. Politik zwischen Mythos und Realität, Katzmann, 2003
- Mombauer, Annika. "Guilt or Responsibility? The Hundred-Year Debate on the Origins of World War I." Central European History 48.4 (2015): 541–564.
- Annika Mombauer (2016). "Germany and the Origins of the First World War". In Matthew Jefferies (ed.). The Ashgate Research Companion to Imperial Germany. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781317043218.
- Karl Jaspers (2009). "The German Questions". The Question of German Guilt. Fordham Univ Press. ISBN 9780823220632.
- Karl Max Lichnowsky (Fürst von); Gottlieb von Jagow (2008) [1918]. The Guilt of Germany for the War of German Aggression : Prince Karl Lichnowsky's Memorandum; Being the Story of His Ambassadorship at London from 1912 to August, 1914, Together with Foreign Minister Von Jagow's Reply. F.P. Putnam (original), University of Wisconsin - Madison (digital).