Although facts and dates are well known concerning the Second World War, Historians are still debating today who or what caused the outbreak of it. The main figure receiving the blame is Adolf Hitler who, with no doubt, played an important role during and before the War. But can he be entirely blamed to have started the war? There are many other factors as to what could have started the war such as the appeasement Britain and France presented.
Germany was also devastated by the harsh terms of the Versailles Treaty; this caused Hitler to want justice for his country. Was he to blame for the War?
Hitler was a very aggressive figure before and during the Second World War. His nationalism drove him to do anything for an improved Germany. He aimed to expand Germanys "lebensraum", the space in which Germans lived. There were thousands of German speaking Germans in Austria and Czechoslovakia and he claimed they should belong to Germany.
Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in Munich, Germa...
Mussolini (left) and Hitler sent their armies to N...
English: Adolf Hitler as a soldier during the Firs...The embarrassing defeat of the First World War made Hitler want to experience glory and victory and he was willing to fight for it.
Many historians believe that Hitler intended a major war from the beginning, he hated communism and wanted to destroy Russia. To do so he had to invade through Poland and destroy it, here by staying neutral with Russia. Historians such as Hugh Trevor-Roper believed this theory. If this theory were correct then the war was inevitable as Hitler would have had his plan of action from the start.
His invasion on Austria was understandable since there were millions of Germans being withheld from their own country. His invasion on Czechoslovakia is debatable though since the space he invaded contained over 1 million non-Germans.
Finally Hitler crossed the line by invading Poland on...
Hitler is still to blame for WW2
As far as I can tell,this essay has a serious case of circular reasoning. Hitler still was responsible for the start of WW2. Maybe Neville Chamberlain's actions delayed the war by a few months (and gave Hitler time to consolidate his power base in the process), but nobody ever asked the Austrians or the German speaking Czechs if they were interested in becoming part of the German Empire.
Yes, the treaty of Versielles was unfair and punitive, but Hitler's actions were not attempts to reneigotiate the treaty, but active acts of aggression to test the willingness of the other European powers to back down.
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