What were the reasons for World War II? Of course, Hitler attacked Poland. On the other hand, when Stalin invaded Poland and then attacked Finland a few months later, nobody declared war on the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, Hitler tried to negotiate a settlement. So what were the reasons for World War II? The Versailles “Peace Treaty” had created so many injustices in Europe that it bore within itself the seeds of a new war. One ought not neglect the colonial arms race in the Pacific between the newcomer Japan and the old European colonial powers…
By Mark Weber ∙ October 1, 1983
Das Hossbach-'Protokoll': Die Zerstörung einer Legende (The Hossbach 'Protocol': The Destruction of a Legend) by Dankwart Kluge. Leoni am Starnberger See: Druffel Verlag, 1980, 168pp, DM 19.80, ISBN 3-80611003-4. Hitler, we're told over and over again, set out to conquer the world, or at least Europe. At the great postwar Nuremberg Tribunal the victorious Allies…
By David L. Hoggan ∙ July 1, 1983
Editor's Note: This article is excerpted from David L. Hoggan's book The Forced War: The Origins and Originators of World War II. The complete book will be published in hardcover by the Institute for Historical Review in December 1983. Professor Hoggan's treatment of the Roosevelt/American role in his book is not limited to one section,…
By Percy L. Greaves ∙ December 1, 1983
We now come to the critical twenty-four hour period before the attack. What did the leaders in Washington know? When did they know it? What did they do about it? Unfortunately, the testimony is a jumbled mass of contradictions. Most witnesses swore under oath that they had performed their duties. Nonetheless, valuable hours were lost…
By James Joseph Martin ∙ April 1, 1982
On 16 October 1940 male residents of the United States between the ages of 18 and 35 registered nation-wide for possible induction into the armed services of the country. It was the first machinery for the introduction of peacetime conscription in the country's history, being the operational consequence of an act of Congress signed by…
By Mark Weber ∙ July 1, 1983
Major ceremonies were held in 1982 to mark the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. With the exceptions of Washington and Lincoln, he was glorified and eulogized as no other president in American history. Even conservative President Ronald Reagan joined the chorus of applause. In early 1983, newspapers and television networks…
By Tyler Kent ∙ July 1, 1983
Indroduction In May 1940, a 29-year-old American code clerk at the U.S. embassy in London was arrested by British authorities in his apartment. Tyler Kent was charged with having violated the British Official Secrets Act. “For a purpose prejudicial to the safety and interests of the state,” the charge stated, Kent had “obtained a document…
By Thomas J. Marcellus ∙ October 1, 1980
Hitler vs. Roosevelt, The Undeclared Naval War, by Thomas A. Bailey and Paul B. Ryan, The Free Press (a division of Macmillan Publishing Co.), 303pp, Hardbound, $12.95. ISBN: 02-901270-8. Two apparently major reviews are found on the back jacket of this 1979 book; one by Edward L. Beach of Run Silent, Run Deep fame, the…
By Harry Elmer Barnes ∙ July 1, 1967
Every American citizen has much more at stake in understanding how and why the U.S. was drawn into World War II than in perusing the Warren Report, its supplementary volumes, and the controversial articles and books of the aftermath, or the annals of any isolated public crime, however dramatic. However tragic and regrettable, the assassination…
By Joseph Bishop ∙ October 1, 2009
The Chief Culprit: Stalin’s Grand Design to Start World War II, by Viktor Suvorov Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 2008, 328pp., illustrated, with notes, bibliography, indexed. The post-1945 war crimes trials in Nuremberg are underway and the international press excitedly covers the proceedings. The tribunal itself consists of justices not from victor powers but from wartime…
By Chip Smith ∙ August 1, 2009
Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization, by Nicholson Baker. Simon & Schuster Inc., New York, 2008. 576 pp. bibliography, indexed. Nested near the end of Nicholson Baker’s first book, The Mezzanine, is an oddly memorable scene. Set apart from the novel’s famously annotated escalator ascent, the scene finds Howie…
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