To what extent can Germany be held responsible for causing the two World Wars? Discuss critically.

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Ghissu Editorial · Accepted Answer

Germany bears the larger share of blame for the First World War and the primary responsibility for the Second, but not sole guilt for either. Its blank cheque and Schlieffen Plan in 1914 and Hitler's Lebensraum programme in 1939 were decisive, alongside Versailles, appeasement and other powers' choices.

**Introduction**

Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles (1919) blamed Germany for 1914, and the invasion of Poland in 1939 seemed to confirm it. Historians remain split between the Fischer school and revisionists such as A.J.P. Taylor and Christopher Clark.

**Germany and the First World War: Shared Guilt**

1. **Weltpolitik and naval race**: Wilhelm II's "place in the sun" and Tirpitz's Naval Laws (1898, 1900) drove Britain into the Ententes.
2. **Blank cheque and Schlieffen Plan**: Germany's pledge to Austria (5 July 1914) and the invasion of neutral Belgium widened a Balkan quarrel, and Fischer (1961) read the September Programme as a bid for hegemony.
3. **Others shared the fault**: Austria's ultimatum, Russia's mobilisation, French revanche and Serbian nationalism fed the crisis, so Clark's The Sleepwalkers (2012) sees collective failure.

**Germany and the Second World War: Primary Guilt**

SKETCH: spectrum | Who caused the wars?
left: Collective failure
right: German design
- Clark on 1914
- Taylor on 1939
- Fischer on 1914
- Trevor-Roper on 1939

1. **Hitler's programme**: Lebensraum, the Hossbach Memorandum (1937), the Rhineland (1936), the Anschluss and Munich (1938) and Prague (1939) show a planned march to war.
2. **Versailles and the Depression**: Keynes's "Carthaginian peace" and six million jobless by 1932 brought the Nazis to power.
3. **Appeasement and other aggressors**: Munich, the League's failure over Manchuria and Abyssinia, the Nazi-Soviet Pact (1939) and Japan's war in Asia show that others enabled or began wars too.

**Way Forward**

1. **Lessons applied**: The Marshall Plan (1948) rebuilt rather than punished, and the UN Security Council received the enforcement power the League lacked.

**Conclusion**

Germany bears the larger share of blame for 1914 and the primary responsibility for 1939. Yet both wars grew from alliances, grievances and failed restraint, so the verdict is German guilt in the first degree, not German guilt alone.

To what extent can Germany be held responsible for causing the two World Wars? Discuss critically.

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