80 years ago, German President Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler Reich Chancellor30 January 1933, 44-year-old Adolf Hitler became the German chancellor. As Voland from “The Master and Margarita” Bulgakov said in a similar case, “Annushka has already spilled oil”. The further stay of Hitler at the helm of the country - it was one big история preparing for the main and most terrible adventure, both personally of his biography, and world history of the XX century.
But could it be otherwise? This question has long been a concern for historians around the world, and there are various versions. One of the most popular is that Hitler did not act independently. War - not his brainchild. Different historians - adherents of this theory sometimes differ only in the assessment of the independence of this character.
One of the prominent supporters of this theory is, for example, the famous Russian historian and publicist Nikolai Starikov. In his article “Hitler and the USA were forced to attack the USSR?” He, in particular, writes: “Adolf Hitler was brought to power by London, Washington and, to a lesser extent, Paris. It was a certain chain dog who was reared for the sole purpose of attacking Russia. They themselves do not like to fight, someone has to do it for them. They brought a strong-willed person, a fanatic to power, gave him money, loans, stopped collecting reparations from Germany, restored the industry. But how can Hitler start a war with the USSR if there are states between them? ”
In an interview with the browser KM.RU, our experts commented on this thesis.
Publicist, political scientist Anatoly Wasserman:
- My old friend, historian and publicist Lev Versovich, repeatedly noted that many of the details of Adolf Hitler’s swift career can only be explained on the basis of the fact that he was specially selected from outside the many competing leaders of external forces. Moreover, they selected him according to a rather unusual criterion: these very external forces (mainly British and American) needed a man fanatical enough to fulfill all his promises regardless of the possible consequences. And they were calculated quite easily: a program built around hatred of other nations, inevitably had to cause the rallying of these other nations against Germany.
The point of this choice was, firstly, to sharply exclude the victory of Germany in the upcoming world war and, secondly, to ensure that after the war Germany’s reputation was spoiled for many years to come. But such a choice was possible and inevitable, first of all, because no one doubted the inevitability of the war itself, that all interested individuals and organizations understood perfectly well that it was inevitable and would be even worse than the First World War.
Actually, when the Versailles Peace Treaty was concluded, the Supreme Commander of the Entente troops, Marshal of France Ferdinand Bertranovich Foch, familiarized himself with the terms of the treaty, immediately declared: "This is not peace: this is a truce for two decades." And he turned out to be absolutely right: the war began just twenty years after the conclusion of the Versailles Treaty. The fact is that the contradictions between countries and groups of countries that gave rise to the First World War did not disappear and could not disappear as long as a market economy exists: it inevitably gives rise to contradictions of this kind, inevitably forces the once divided world again and again therefore, the continuation of the war was obviously inevitable. And, of course, different countries tried to prepare for it in different ways. In particular, the United Kingdom and the United States of America prepared for themselves a convenient adversary.
As for the prospect that racial theory will gradually grow into mass murder, this did not bother anyone seriously, because then all the major countries were obsessed with different forms of racial theory, and, naturally, each expected that it would be the highest race. Actually, Hitler rather accurately reproduced the theory in his writings and his works, which had been developed by the Englishman Chamberlain and the Frenchman Gobino before. So it didn’t really bother anyone: everyone expected that the blow would fall on others. In principle, then all Western countries were passionate about racial theories in one form or another. The only large country where such a theory has never found a comfortable ground for itself is our country. And, accordingly, one can, of course, consider some of the actions of Germany, as the lawyers say, the excesses of the performer, but these excesses were, perhaps, no longer in Germany, but in other countries.
Expert Natalia Makeeva Center for Geopolitical Expertise:
- The theory proposed by Starikov, in my opinion, has the right to exist, and, in principle, it looks quite logical. Another theory is just as logical, according to which the events of World War II simply repeated the events of the 1812 war of the year as a terrible copy. According to the Russian historian Alexei Yedrikhin, published under the name of Vandam, Napoleon should, in theory, fight with England, but instead he began to fight with Russia.
And the events of the Second World War were to develop in a similar way, that is, Germany had to identify with Russia (actually, our countries followed this path) and oppose the United States, against England, against this Atlantic vector. However, this did not happen in a striking way, contrary to all geopolitical logic and common sense. Moreover, the racist theory, for which the whole world still hates Hitler so much, was also not initially relevant in his political life. Initially, his activities did not involve anything like this. Inside the German elites, two vectors fought, one of which suggested the theory of the rights of peoples, and the other just put forward this monstrous racist theory, which still causes horror in everyone.
Thus, what happened in 30-40's was not predetermined and, in my opinion, was obviously the result of an external (relative to Germany) game. The only question is, whose intelligence services were these - England or the United States, or did these countries act somehow jointly, as a result of which Hitler directed all the power of his army not to the West, but to the East.
It's all pretty complicated intertwined. First, he was influenced by his own elites, that is, he was not independent, as we know from history, even in relation to his own elites who influenced him. Of course, one cannot discount his own ambitions and vanity, but he was not an independent figure. It just so happened that in the German elites, this vector eventually won, which later dealt with opponents.
As for influence from the West, it certainly was, and you can only discuss the extent to which it was strong. It is unlikely that we will completely find out whether these were subtle diplomatic games or whether Hitler was under direct control. That is, one cannot exclude the possibility that initially he could send his forces both to the West and to the East.