Gerhard L. Weinberg

Hitler's Image of the United States

A SIGNIFICANT factor in the understanding of international relations is the perception of countries and issues by those in a position to make policy. The more policy formulation is restricted to one man or a small group, the more important this factor becomes. The conduct of foreign relations by a dictator can often be understood only by reference to his image of the outside world, an image that acts as a filter distorting the realities he sees. This is particularly true for Adolf Hitler whose views on most matters changed very little during his adult life, and who was little affected by experience which leads other men to adjust erroneous perceptions to facts. Because of its emphasis on the unearthing of new documentary evidence, the study of diplomatic history has often tended to attempt a reconstruction of events on the basis of knowledge subsequently attained by the scholar though contemporaneously unknown to the actors. Even when allowance for this factor has been made, the information known at any given time is frequently seen only through the eyes of the writer without regard to the perception of that information by the man making the decisions. This attempt to trace Hitlers image of the United States is designed to illustrate an avenue for examining the diplomatic history of the recent past. This essay, therefore, will be no survey of German-American relations, but an analysis of the particular and personal perspective of Adolf Hitler on the United States and the implications of his image of America for his policies. Hitler did not leave an extensive correspondence with friends, relatives, and officials, which might provide a basis for assessing his attitudes. Nor, to judge by available evidence, did he make marginal comments on papers submitted to him for information or decision. He left two books, a few memorandums, a small number of private documents. All the rest consists of public speeches and private talk, recorded by others; even the books are really speeches reduced to writing and provided with some continuity. Since Hitler never earned a reputation for excessive veracity, the scholar faces the question of the reliability of his evidence. There is a rule of thumb that can be used to good advantage. Before I933

From peace to war : Germany, Soviet Russia, and the world, 1939-1941

Part I: The Period of Soviet-German Partnership Part II: Operation Barbarossa: Political Preconditions, Strategic Planning and Military Consequences Part III: Politics and Experience of the War of Annihilation Part IV: Soviet Politics and War Strategy 1941 Part V: Germany and the Soviet Union in International Politics

Historians and Archivists: A Rationale for Cooperation

InJuly 1992 a small team of historians and archivists gathered at the Bentley Historical Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan. We had assembled to review graduate history education. As the team considered practical questions about training history graduate students to do research, its members realized that recent developments have greatly complicated those questions. We recognized that major changes are taking place in both the historical and the archival professions. We believe the changes warrant a rethinking both of training for archival research and of the missions of the two professions and the connections between them. This article is based on the report of the team. It reviews the shared past of the two fields, the changes underway in each, and the ways historians and archivists have cooperated. It suggests ways they might renew cooperative efforts to advance their common interest in creating, preserving, and interpreting the documentary record. In recent decades a series of interrelated events has eroded our confidence in universal rules for preserving and telling stories about the past. No longer do people within the historical and archival professions agree that certain principles will ensure good history and good archival practices. Amid the disagreements and debates, both professions are reassessing their role in society. At a fundamental level, the issues and concerns challenging historians and archivists today appear to have many common characteristics. Both professions may therefore benefit from shared analyses of those challenges, and from common efforts to address them. There is a natural partnership between those who decide what evidence will be available and those who decide how to interpret it. We believe that the kind of history that historians now do would be enriched by renewing the partnership that once existed between historians and archivists. And we believe that the work of ar-

Essay and Reflection: The Munich Crisis Revisited

look back on the events surrounding the Munich Conference of 1938 from the perspective of half a century, broader issues . inform our thinking even as the old controversies continue. This essay is designed to suggest briefly three approaches to the dramatic events of those anxious September days and the developments that preceded and followed them : first, some comments on recent new information on the events themselves; second, a suggested placement of the Munich settlement into the development of the European state system ; and third, a comparison of the crisis with another international crisis which at one point seemed likely to lead to a great war but was then resolved, though with a very different sequel.

A Review of “WWII Behind Closed Doors: Stalin, the Nazis and the West”: Rees, Laurence, New York: Pantheon Books 448 pp.,

Diaspora proclaimed Christ’s truth, but Jews themselves remained inviolate as God’s peculiar people. Thus, Augustine hit on the line of Psalm 59—”Slay them not”—the title of the book’s last chapter, as the exegetical grounds for arguing that the Jews, although thrown on the dunghill of covenantal progress, should be left in peace. Even as contemporaries embraced violence against Jews as well as pagans and heretics, Augustine, who had no compunctions against using force against the latter groups, remained steadfast in his aversion to force against the Jews. It is in this last chapter and the epilogue that follows that Fredriksen makes her contribution to the broader debate over Christian anti-Semitism. By providing an example of Christian tolerance, albeit limited, she argues implicitly that Christianity does not embrace disenfranchisement and condemnation of Judaism: in fact, Christianity requires Judaism. She concludes, “In the changed social context of medieval Christendom, Augustine’s invocation of Psalm 59 . . . ultimately would safeguard Jewish lives. But that is a story of another time, for another time” (352). Indeed, it is. One might wonder just how influential Augustine was during the numerous forced baptisms and pogroms of the middle ages. Fredriksen has given her readers a marvelous and convincing analysis of a theological construct, but sadly, the subtlety and complexity of Augustine’s genius may have been lost in the social world of Jewish-Christians relations.

35.00, ISBN 978-0-307-37730-2 Publication Date: April 2009

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A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II.

In most treatments of World War II, attention is centered on Germany and Japan for the early stages of the conflict, and then attention shifts to the Allies as they strove for victory in the second half of the war. From a perspective which looks backward rather than forward, the choices of the Germans and the Japanese in the latter portion of the war are seen as purely defensive. In fact, one might be tempted to think that the Germans and Japanese were fighting in the last two years of the war as if they had nothing better to do. There appears to be a general assumption that Germany, the focus of attention here, was continuing to fight because, unlike its European allies like Italy, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Finland, its leadership had no objective at all: the others all tried to get out of the war, only Germany seemed determined to go down in flames. This perspective on the last stages of the war in Europe is excessively tainted with hindsight. On the one hand, it assumes that all was settled and sealed with the turning of the tide in 1943; on the other, it not only assumes that the Allied coalition was bound to hold together and that the Germans were bereft of all prospects of victory but also that the latter actually so saw themselves, having no concepts of their own but the simple – and terrible one – of fighting on to the bitter end.

German Plans for Victory, 1944–45

The fiftieth anniversary of World War II stimulated vast interest in its major events. From the fiftieth anniversary of its outbreak through the fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of Britain and of Pearl Harbor and a whole series of such anniversaries, the parade continues until 1995. Because of my work on a general history of the war over a period of fourteen years, I would like to suggest some issues which appear in need of further discussion and examination. When examined with care, these issues may cause us to look at the events of that war somewhat differently. For convenience matters are put forward a country at a time. Since the Germans began the war with their invasion of Poland in 1939, they will be put first. The single most difficult task all those working on World War II in Europe and North Africa face is the need to penetrate the fog of distortion and confusion generated by the vast German memoir literature, especially that of the generals like Heinz Guderian and Erich von Manstein. Long the basic staple on which secondary literature was based, closer examination of these works with reference to contemporary evidence has shown the memoirs to be almost invariably inaccurate, distorted, and in some instances simply faked.