{"id":985,"date":"2015-04-08T21:37:38","date_gmt":"2015-04-09T01:37:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/social.rollins.edu\/wpsites\/letters\/?p=985"},"modified":"2019-07-29T21:39:04","modified_gmt":"2019-07-29T21:39:04","slug":"outbreak-of-war-1939","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/2015\/04\/08\/outbreak-of-war-1939\/","title":{"rendered":"Outbreak of War – 1939"},"content":{"rendered":"

The prologue and first chapter of Roger Moorhouse\u2019s Berlin at War <\/i>focused primarily on the celebration of Hitler\u2019s 50th birthday, and the start of the Second World War in 1939. The disparity between Berlin citizen\u2019s behavior during Hitler\u2019s birthday celebrations, and the announcement of war was stark; enthusiastic festivities contrasted against the solemn apathy at Germany\u2019s invasion of Poland. Berliners appeared apathetic towards the advent of World War II at least, and hopeless and hysteric at most. More proactive civilians began hoarding food and supplies in the face of the upcoming conflict. Others sent their children off to live with relatives in the safer countryside. Most listened to Hitler\u2019s speeches with dissatisfaction or silent resignation. This attitude, I believe, could mostly be attributed to the recentness of the First World War, the results of which had left a deep scar on the German public psyche. Not to mention, the economic and political consequences of the Versailles Treaty Germany faced due directly to the war guilt clause, which rendered the country responsible for World War I. Hitler\u2019s constant attempts to re-allocate blame for the invasion of Poland, and for Britain\u2019s declaration of war, exemplified this fact as well. It is often forgotten how much of an influence World War I continued to have in the 1920s and 1930s, but it was clearly one of the reasons Berliners (and perhaps most Europeans) did not welcome the invasion of Poland with excitement. <\/span><\/p>\n

While reading, I was immediately reminded of studying the lead-up to World War II in high school history. Moorehouse makes several references to Hitler\u2019s actions prior to the war, but in reviewing this information, it became clear to me that war was nearly inevitable, despite attempts to meet German demands. Ironically, it often seemed that in an attempt to avoid war at all costs, other European countries unintentionally encouraged German aggression in the 1930s. Subsequent incidents like the remilitarization of the Rhineland, anchluss<\/i>, Danzig, the Munich Conference, and occupation of Czechoslovakia also made Hitler\u2019s attempts to place blame for the outbreak of war on any other country more ridiculous. Of course, a war for the defense of innocent Germany would have seemed far more appealing than an aggressive invasion of Poland with unforeseen consequences. Nonetheless, it was still alarming to see how little raw (as in, not legally enforced) support Hitler had in the capital city. It would have been interesting to research where he garnered most of his support from, geographically.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The prologue and first chapter of Roger Moorhouse\u2019s Berlin at War focused primarily on the celebration of Hitler\u2019s 50th birthday, and the start of the Second World War in 1939. The disparity between Berlin citizen\u2019s behavior during Hitler\u2019s birthday celebrations, and the announcement of war was stark; enthusiastic festivities contrasted against the solemn apathy at…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[367,1],"tags":[172],"class_list":["post-985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-field-studies","category-uncategorized","tag-germanypoland-2015"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=985"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18057,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985\/revisions\/18057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}