Germany's Aims in the First World War

Fritz Fischer,a Great Historian,treats Germany and the Germans of those Times with the same dispassionate analytical accuracy in his quest to find and present the truth of the subject matter,as Thucydides treated Athens in his History of the Peloponnesian war.This is a rare book of High History,definitive and difficult to surpass.While he is coldly relentless and unforgiving he is on the same time dispassionate ,incisive, deep and penetrating so that his conclusions cannot be doubted.An image of a mighty Germany,dizzy by its own adrenaline comes out ,in a detailed and fully supported by documentation manner,that it emerges from the pages of this book that Germany bears a great burden of responsibility for this War,not only through the encouragement of A-H to attack Serbia but also the willingness to face France and Russia and the maintenance of the Aims conceived for the benefit of Germany before the War,throughout the War years until the final defeat.The author considers and effectively demonstrates that Germany wanted to unite Central Europe in an economic unit under German Hegemony so as to counterbalance the other Empires of those Times and deal with them on an equal footing.The work is a model of research,analysis ,academic integrity,excellent presentation and clear conclusions.The writing is dense and the attention of the reader is constantly required .The elegantly austere prose makes reading it a pleasure.Although the book was badly received in Germany by a section of Academia and Public Opinion and gladly by other Countries one should be careful not to consider that it puts all the responsibility on Germany.The book covers only Germany.Unfortunately we do not have Historians of the same caliber to do the same for their own Countries,in spite of excellent Histories of the1st WW written.as Fischer himself modestly puts it in the forword:"It is not for the Historian to accuse or defend....It would be too simple to present the German Emperor as solely responsible for German Policy before the First WW,or Ludendorff during it..."In an elegant underlining of the need for similar books on Germany's opponents he states:"The War Aims of these States would require a separate book"So to read this book in the spirit of Prof. F Fischer one must not search for persons or Countries to indict but rather in Fischer's own words:"To establish facts and to marshal them in the sequence of cause and effect"DVK

This book is just as valuable today as it was when published in the 1960’s. I was lucky enough to be a part of a graduate course at UCSB taught by Professor Alfred Gollin. One of the foremost British History professors ever. We spent two quarters studying this book. Probably the best course I ever attended. Great book. Einkreisung

This analysis of the truth about what Willy wanted (as formulated by his Imperial Chancellor) is only a fraction of its original size in the German language, but it’s still a massive effort. It examines in minute detail Germany’s evolving war aims from every possible angle, as the war progressed, and because of that approach it seems to be redundant, but invariably there will be different “Aha!” moments that make all those words worthwhile.It’s slow going, because of the numerous names, dates and places involved in the structuring of the hegemony the German empire hoped to achieve, but Fischer is a good writer who knows how to bring all this information together into a readable whole. This book was written in the 1960s, but the reader can see the roots of the Second World War, and even the origin of much of the current political state of the world.Post-war historical revisionism is always dangerous. Its proponents justify it on the basis of the popular belief that “history is written by the victors” (quote attributed to Winston Churchill), but it’s divisive, and it sets people up for future conflict. First World War revisionist history, as promulgated during the Wilhelmine Reich, the Weimar Republic, and the Third Reich, directly led to the Second World War, and it still makes up much of the teaching of history today. Fischer did everything he could to protect the world from revisionist thinking.Many used copies of this book are available. It’s not for everybody (certainly not for the casual reader), but it’s a must for serious Great War researchers, who will recognize Fischer’s name in works by other authors, not all of whom agree with him.Highly recommended.

This is a controversial book from the 1960s that described Germany's war aims in World War 1 as expansive and imperialist in nature. The stress is on territorial aims, which included relations with the ports of the Low countries in the West, expansion into territories that were until recently under Soviet influence in the East and the idea of Mittelafrika (middle Africa) under which German colonies in East and West Africa (Tanzania, Cameroon, Namibia) would be united by takeover of the Belgian Congo and neighboring countries. The result is to present Germany's foreign policy as outside international norms in its expansionism.This gave rise to a controversy that should probably be studied by anyone wanting a balanced view of the subject. It was the spirit of the times that the book itself made it into English and its views were widely accepted, prior to scholarly attention moving to World War 2. German domestic politics are also not addressed in the book save as they impinge on foreign policy. It gives an insight into German war aims, but possibly confuses speculative plans when victory was hoped for with actual negotiations. On the whole I found it readable and absorbing. The very scope of the thinking sometimes seems to belong to a bygone age of European ambitions.

Fischer has definitive insight into what drove Germany to go to war and hang on to the bitter end. You need to know a lot about the war before you tackle this long and very detailed book. It's not for the novice. And if you think you knew it all, you'll still learn a lot. Once you get through, it you want to read Fischer's War Of Illusion. It's out of print but well worth the read.

Book came in faster than anticipated, well packed and in excellent condition for a sixty year old book. Great transaction.