National Socialism was, to a considerable extent, a counter-movement to the international communism sponsored by Russian Bolshevism. Hence, both systems were deeply antagonistic, and had been engaged in a cold war since the end of the First World War, presaging the later Cold War between the Soviet Union and the West. Indeed, Germany and Russia were to fight a proxy war, each taking opposing sides in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). Mutual threats of extermination were commonplace. Therefore, in the absence of any deterrent, it seemed inevitable that a military conflict would break out at some point.
By Joseph Bishop ∙ November 1, 1997
Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War?, by Viktor Suvorov (Vladimir Rezun). London: Hamish Hamilton, 1990. Hardcover. Maps. Photos. Source references. Index. Joseph Bishop studied history and German at a South African university. Currently employed in a professional field, he resides in the Pacific Northwest with his wife and three children. It sometimes happens that…
By Wolf Rüdiger Hess ∙ January 1, 1993
(Presented by videotape at the Eleventh IHR Conference, 1992) Wolf Rüdiger Hess studied at the Technical University in Munich, from where he graduated as a government-certified engineer in 1964. He is chairman of the Rudolf Hess Society (Postfach 1122, 8033 Planegg, Germany). He and his wife live in Bavaria. [He passed away on October 24,…
By Mark Weber ∙ January 1, 1993
On the evening of May 10, 1941, the Deputy Führer of the Third Reich set out on a secret mission that was to be his last and most important. Under cover of darkness, Rudolf Hess took off in an unarmed Messerschmidt 110 fighter-bomber from an Augsburg airfield and headed across the North Sea toward Britain….
By Adolf Hitler ∙ December 1, 1988
It has often been said that Hitler's greatest mistakes were his decisions to go to war against the Soviet Union and the United States. Whatever the truth may be, it's worth noting his own detailed justifications for these grave decisions. On Thursday afternoon, 11 December 1941, four days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor,…
By Dennis N. Smith ∙ July 1, 1988
Stalin's War: A Radical New Theory of the Origins of the Second World War, by Ernst Topitsch. Translated by A. and B.E. Taylor. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987, 160 pages, $19.95, ISBN: 0-312-0989-5. Can there be any real doubt who was the prime mover in the tumultuous events of 1933-1945? From the vast majority…
By Mark Weber ∙ December 1, 1985
Viktor Suvorov is a former member of the Soviet General Staff who now lives in the West. He is the author of three authoritative works on the Soviet armed forces. Writing in the June 1985 issue of the Journal of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies, Suvorov assembles impressive evidence to show that…
By Charles Lutton ∙ April 1, 1984
Stalin's Secret War by Nikolai Tolstoy. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1981, 463pp, $18.50, ISBN 0-03-047266-0. Pawns of Yalta: Soviet Refugees and America's Role in Their Repatriation by Mark R. Elliott. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982, 287pp, $17.95, ISBN 0-252-00897-9. Our “present” has to a large degree been shaped by the events of…
By W.K.F. Schuldes ∙ April 1, 1982
Czechoslovakia's Role in Soviet Strategy, by Josef Kalvoda, University Press of America, Pb, 382pp, $9.75. The author, a professional historian, was born in Czechoslovakia in 1923, left the CSR in 1948, has been living in the USA since 1951 and presently teaches at St. Joseph's College in West Hartford, Conn. Prof. Kalvoda has given us…
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 Daniel W. Michaels ∙ July 31, 2012
Constantine Pleshakov. Stalin’s Folly: The Tragic First Ten Days of World War II on the Eastern Front. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York, 2005, 312 pp. As the title of Constantine Pleshakov’s book implies, the author, a Russian historian,[1] holds Stalin personally responsible for the debacle that befell the Red Army at the outbreak…
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