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The World War

Decent Essays

Joint intentionalist and structuralists are perhaps even more applicable to the Second World War. The Germans as a whole were embarrassed by not only their loss of the First World War, but also the components of the Versailles Treaty, including, but not limited to the reparations and the territory loss. Before Hitler’s rise to Chancellor in 1933, he published Mein Kampf as a clear plan for the German Reich (Copeland 121). Going along with the intentionalist theory, Mein Kampf once again called for lebensraum for the German nationals, domestic or not, and taking back what they had lost in Versailles (Kershaw 110). Further evidence for German long-term goals is evident by Germany’s withdrawal from the League of Nations and plan for rearmament, showing that they were planning something of which the international community would not approve (Kershaw 116, Copeland 125). Of course, there are also strong structuralist arguments for the outbreak of the war. While Hitler planned for war in different stages, there was not a clear strategy that the Germans were going to take at every given moment. After France’s invasion of the Ruhr Valley to get their reparations, the Germans could see that the British and other Allies were not going to hold them accountable (Copeland Lecture). There was no way that they could foresee this general appeasement, but they definitely put it to their advantage. They used this opportunity to remilitarize the Rhineland and then take the Sudetenland

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