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A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II

2006; Oxford University Press; Volume: CXXI; Issue: 494 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/ehr/cel361

1477-4534

J Black,

Military and Defense Studies

As Gerhard Weinberg makes clear, this is not the revision of the first edition as a whole that might be anticipated from the use of the term ‘second edition’, and, from that perspective, the publishers have missed a major opportunity. The ten-page preface to the new edition, essentially a review of the literature since the work first appeared in 1994, is, however, full of interest, not so much for the very brief summaries of the work of others as for Weinberg's robust views. He is in no doubt that Hitler's decision to attack the Soviet Union did not arise from concern about Soviet intentions, and, indeed, that Stalin had no intention to attack. At this point, it is worth noting Ian Kershaw's argument in his recent essay ‘Did Hitler Miss his Chance in 1940?’ (in N. Gregor, ed., Nazism, War and Genocide (Exeter, 2005): rev. supra, pp. 886–8) that Hitler's conviction that the USA would enter the war on Britain's side led him to feel that an attack on the Soviet Union was necessary in order to win rapid victory before such an entry. Weinberg dismisses conspiracy theories over the attack on Pearl Harbor, has scant sympathy for German complaints about Allied bombing and justifies the use of the atom bombs. He argues that careful scholarship has reinforced the views of those who have held that shocking Japan into surrender by the dropping of the bombs saved both vast numbers of American lives and even larger numbers of Japanese lives. Weinberg argues that more emphasis should be placed on the American casualties that would have stemmed from the use of atomic bombs in tactical support of any invasion, and also on the strategic situation in China and South-east Asia, and the willingness of the Japanese to kill Allied prisoners of war. Weinberg underlines the centrality of killing Jews to German war-making, not only on the Eastern Front but also, for example, in terms of the intended exploitation of victory in North Africa. As he points out, Rommel's conquest of Palestine was to enable the Germans to slaughter the Jews there before the area was handed over to Italy. With reference to his citation of Breitman's work, it is, however, worth noting Michael Smith's corrective in ‘Bletchley Park and the Holocaust’ in Intelligence and National Security (2004). Weinberg argues that most authors have failed to note the general strategic significance for the course of the war on the Eastern Front as well as elsewhere of British successes in Iraq and Syria in 1941. He is also convinced that the Red Army's halt before Warsaw during the Polish uprising was a deliberate choice to enable the Germans to crush forces loyal to the Polish government-in-exile. Weinberg also draws attention to the challenge posed by the quality of wartime paper to the historical record and, as a result, urges the opening and microfilming of hitherto closed records, not least those on Soviet intelligence. He predicts increasingly balanced treatment of the issues of collaboration and resistance. Excellent value for money, this first-rate book, unfortunately, is too long for most modern undergraduates, which is a comment on students, not criticism of a wide-ranging book.