The Outbreak of the Second World War: Design or Blunder?

This bibliography must be highly selective. Nothing less than the entire post- 1914 history of the world, and especially of Europe, needs to be understood if one is properly to appraise the coming of the Second World War. Pertinent studies are listed in George F. Howe and others ( American Historical Association), Guide to Historical Literature ( Washington, 1961). Articles by historians of many nations presenting new facts or interpretations are summarized in Historical Abstracts. These are minimum reference works for those who undertake further study of the origins of the Second World War. A journal of major importance for both articles and bibliography is the Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte.

It goes without saying that study beyond this book should include the full works from which these readings have been selected. The title pages of the readings provide bibliographical data on these works by the International Military Tribunal; William L. Langer and S. Everett Gleason; the Soviet Information Bureau; Charles Callan Tansill; Henry L. Roberts; L. B. Namier; Raymond J. Sontag, Hermann Mau and Helmut Krausnick; Maurice Baumont; A. J. P. Taylor; and Adolf Hitler; the reading by H. L. Trevor-Roper in this book is complete. Other books mentioned in the Introduction to this book might be consulted: Dwight E. Lee, Ten Years: The World on the Way to War, 1930-1940 ( Boston, 1942); D. F. Fleming, The Cold War and Its Origins, 1917-1960, 2 vols. ( Garden City, 1961); Ludwig Denne, Das Danzig-Problem in der deutschen Aussenpolitik, 1934-1939 ( Bonn, 1959); Martin Broszat , Nationalsozialistische Polenpolitik, 1939-1945 ( Stuttgart, 1961); Wolfgang Wagner , Die Entstehung der Oder-Neisse- Linie . . . ( Stuttgart, 1953); Mario Toscano, Le Origini del patto d'acciaio ( Florence, 1948); Walter Hofer, Die Entfesselung des Zweiten Weltkrieges: Eine Studie über die internationalen Beziehungen im Sommer 1939, 2nd ed. ( Stuttgart, 1955; there is an English translation); William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich ( New York, 1960; a Crest Book paperback edition was published in 1962 by Fawcett Publishers); David L. Hoggan , Der erzwungene Krieg: Die Ursachen und Urheber des 2. Weltkrieges ( Tübingen, 1961); and Gerhard L. Weinberg and Hans Rothfels (eds.), Hitlers zweites Buch ( Munich, 1961). Alan Bullock , Hitler: A Study in Tyranny ( New York, 1952; revised ed., 1960; also available in paperback) is indispensable. Excellent background is also available in Paul Seabury , The Wilhelmstrasse ( Berkeley, 1954); John W. Wheeler-Bennett, The Nemesis of Power: The German Army in Politics, 1918-1945 ( New York, 1953); and Burton H. Klein, Germany's Economic Preparations for War ( Cambridge, Mass., 1959). Much ex post facto testimony on 1939 by Hitler can be found in H. R. Trevor-Roper (ed.), Hitler's Secret Conversations, 1941-1944 ( New York, 1953). For a brief bibliography of essential works on National Socialism see John L. Snell (ed.), The Nazi Revolution: Germany's Guilt or Germany's Fate? ( Boston, 1959), a volume in the same series in which this book is published. For the attitude of the anti-Nazi resistance movement toward Hitler's foreign policy the interested reader might begin by consulting Gerhard Ritter, The German Resistance: Carl Goerdeler's Struggle against Tyranny ( New York, 1958). An excellent German study of military planning for war is Hans-Adolf Jacobsen , Fall Gelb: Der Kampf um den deutschen Operationsplan zur Westoffensive 1940 ( Wiesbaden, 1957). How the presumed exclusive guilt of Germany for

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