The sources of World War II

Keith Eubank's The Origins of World War II

In the final signings of the Treaty of Versailles, Marshal Foch predicted that the treaty “is not peace. It is an armistice for twenty years”. The reparations that Germany was forced to pay after its loss in the First World War had an immense effect on the coming of the Second World War; a foreboding collapse of the German economy caused an upset amongst the German people that could, “Only be quelled by an iron-fisted leader”1. This was coupled with the world's own economic crisis, in which P.M.H. Bell believes to have “destroyed a situation offering a real chance of evolution towards a stable European peace” . The First World War evidently caused irreparable damage to the economies of countries involved in Europe, and economic relations in the international system were consequently strained2.

However, the final factor that plays possibly the most significant role in explaining the origins of the Second World War is Hitler. According to Jonathan Wright, there is “no lack of material on Hitler's intentions”, which can be clearly summarized in one line when Hitler stated that “Germany will either be a world power or there will be no Germany” 3.

The Penguin History of WWII claims that there “are two extreme views about the origins of the Second World War. One is that it was all Hitler's fault. The other is that it was a war in which Hitler, along with a lot of other people, and for much the same reasons, got involved”. However, numerous debates have been conducted concerning the argument that Germany's Fuhrer was ultimately the propeller of the Second World War, and this analysis itself claims that Hitler “wanted a great war for its own sake. Germany the greatest Power in ...