Historiography of World War II

The Historiography of World War II is the study of how historians viewed the causes and outcome of World War II.

Historiographical Viewpoints

Contemporary View

Especially directly after World War II, Nazi Germany was held to blame for starting the war. Historians cited several reasons for this. Germany was the one who initially invaded Poland against the recommendation of the allies, and also attacked the Soviet Union. Also, the system of alliances between the Axis Powers was one that was only meant for war. The tripartite pact stated that if any country declared war on one of the Axis countries, the other two would also declare war on those countries. Another reason, historians saw, is that the policies of Hitler were overly aggressive; not only did Hitler preach war with France and the Soviet Union, but he followed a careful pre-made plan of expansionism.

Revisionist View

However, soon after the war, some historians said that Germany and the Axis weren't completely responsible for World War II; in fact, some said that the allies were more to blame than the Germans for starting the war, more because of their inaction rather than their actions. First, the Treaty of Versailles left Germany scarred and restricted them heavily, but was not strict enough to prevent the rise of a totalitarian such as Hitler. Also, the League of Nations were not powerful enough to prevent a war; they had no armed forces for themselves, as they relied on member countries for military support, and they were unable to issue harsh enough reprimands when Germany began to make a military and also when Hitler annexed Czechoslovakia and invaded Poland. When Germany annexed Czechoslovakia, there was no response from Britain or France because they did not want to start a war. However, this made Hitler and the Nazis more confident in their expansionism.
Also, revisionists had doubts about America's foreign policy leading up to World War II. They claimed that the axis powers did not threaten American interests and that Franklin Roosevelt's foreign policy would "inevitably" lead to war in Europe and Asia. They also claimed that FDR deliberately provoked Japan to attack Pearl Harbor; they said that Japan wanted peace with the United States, but FDR wanted war. Also, the results of American involvement in World War II were negative, as it lead to the rise of the Soviet Union and the Cold War.

Methods of Historiography

Canada

Canada deployed trained historians to Canadian Military Headquarters in the United Kingdom during the war, and paid much attention to the chronicling of the conflict, not only in the words of the official historians of the Army Historical Section, but also through art and trained painters. The official history of the Canadian Army was undertaken after the war, with an interim draft published in 1948 and three volumes in the 1950s. This was in comparison to the First World War's official history, only 1 volume of which was completed by 1939, and the full text only released after a change in authors some 40 years after the fact. Official histories of the RCAF and RCN in the Second World War were also a long time coming, and the book Arms, Men and Government by Charles Stacey (one of the main contributors to the Army history) was published in the 1980s as an "official" history of the war policies of the Canadian government.

Some battles have remained controversial, such as Hong Kong and Dieppe, and a variety of books have been written on them from various points of view. Serious historians - mainly scholars - emerged in the years after the Second World War, foremost Terry Copp (a scholar) and Denis Whitaker (a former soldier).

Eastern Front

It is commonly said that history is written by the victors; but the exact opposite occurred in the chronicling of the Eastern Front, particularly in the West. Soviet secrecy and unwillingness to acknowledge events that might discredit the regime led to them revealing little information, always heavily edited - leaving western historians to rely almost totally on German sources. While still valuable sources, they tended to be self-serving; German generals in particular tried to distance themselves and the Heer as a whole away from the Nazi Party, while at the same time blaming them for their defeat (individuals supporting these arguments are commonly called part of the 'Hitler Lost Us The War' group). While this self-serving approach was noticed at the time, it was still generally accepted as the closest version of the truth. The end result was a commonly held picture of the Heer being the superior army, ground down by the vast numbers of the 'Bolshevik horde' and betrayed by the stupidity of Hitler. Not only did this ignore Hitler's talent as a military leader, an erratic talent that was sometimes brilliantly incisive and sometimes grossly in error, it also severely undervalued the remarkable transformation of the Soviet armed forces, especially the Red Army (RKKA), from the timid, conservative force of 1941 to an effective war-winning organisation.

After the fall of the wall, Western historians were suddenly exposed to the vast number of Soviet records of the time. This has led to an explosion of the works on the subject, most notably by Richard Overy, David Glantz and Antony Beevor. These historians emphasised the brutality of Stalin's regime, the recovery of the USSR and the RKKA in 1942 and the courage and abilities of the average Russian soldier, relying heavily on Soviet archival material to do so.

Netherlands

It is commonly said in the Netherlands that the country was liberated by 'the Americans'. However, the US liberated most of Dutch Limburg and participated in the liberation of the eastern part of North Brabant, together about 15% of the country. The rest was liberated by Canadian, British, Polish and several other forces (predominantly Canadians, whom the Dutch may have regarded as 'Americans').

Holocaust denial

An aberration has developed, discredited by all reputable scholarly sources, denying German responsibility for the war, and even denying the reality of the Holocaust. These proponents are now commonly known as Holocaust deniers.