War (evans)

The history book "War" is the last volume of a trilogy by the British historian Richard J. Evans about the time of National Socialism - the Third Reich (published after 2003, Volume 1: Ascent - 2004, Volume 2: Dictatorship - 2007, Volume 3: War - September 2009). Evans depicts Hitler's policy during the Second World War up to the surrender of the Wehrmacht on May 8, 1945 .

In his portrayal, Evans focuses on five decisive phases of the war, possibly turning points, almost all of which show a failure of Hitler's politics and his armed forces:

• the lost Battle of Britain in the summer and autumn of 1940
• German offensive off Moscow from autumn to December 1941
• the defeat of Stalingrad in the winter of 1942/1943
• Allied landing in Normandy
• Collapse of Army Group Center on the German Eastern Front in June / August 1944

In the last chapter, "Downfall" , Evans shows how the criminal system functions even in the chaos of its dissolution: court martial against battle-weary soldiers, the murder of prison inmates and concentration camp inmates or their death marches and the wave of suicides in May 1945.

The Evans trilogy, along with the biography of Hitler by Ian Kershaw, is part of a new generation of British historians grappling with the history of their fathers' time.

Core theses

Since the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the German war was already a war of extermination in the sense of genocide based on racial ideology . From the first day on, the SS Einsatzgruppen (police units behind the front) and so-called Volksdeutsche militias, supported by the Wehrmacht , murdered Polish civilians, especially Polish Jews, in order to "Aryanize" the area over the long term.

Regarding the question of when the final decision or order for the so-called final solution of the Jewish question , the mass murder of millions of European Jews, was made, Evans assumes a gradual development of the extermination program since the summer of 1941, which extended over several months. In doing so, Hitler repeatedly gave the decisive impetus, which Göring and Himmler put into action. Evans speaks of a “comprehensively coordinated policy under central management” and thus rejects Hans Mommsen's thesis that the murderous event took place automatically, in uncoordinated bursts. Even if there is not one groundbreaking decision that must be precisely dated or it cannot be proven, this process as a whole is the result of central decisions of the Nazi regime.

Following the state of research according to Peter Longerich and Bernward Dörner , Evans assumes that there is widespread knowledge about the “extermination of the Jews” within the German population of that time (“open secret”). In doing so, he does not combine knowledge about it and consent to it. According to Evans, the available source material suggests that ordinary Germans by and large disagreed .

Regarding the Allied, strategic bombings also against the German civilian population, Evans points to their successes against the German war economy and to their successes in the deteriorating morale of the Germans ( air or bomb warfare) . This corresponded to Hitler's reluctance to appear in public or to give speeches in the final phase of the war.

literature

• Richard J. Evans: The Third Reich. All at: DVA, Frankfurt am Main.
  • Aufstieg , Vol. 1, 2004, 768 pages, ISBN 3-421-05652-8 .
  • Dictatorship , Vol. 2, 2007, 1,104 pages, ISBN 3-421-05653-6 .
  • Krieg , Vol. 3, 2009, 1,152 pages, ISBN 978-3-421-05800-3 .

expenditure

• The Third Reich at War , Penguin, UK, October 2008, ISBN 978-0-7139-9742-2 .
• The Third Reich at War , Penguin, USA, March 2009, ISBN 978-1-59420-206-3 .

Reviews

• Volker Ullrich : Until the very end, by all means. In: Die Zeit No. 51 of 10 Dec. 2009, p. 49.