A. J. P. Taylor
The Origins of the Second World War

The Origins of the Second World War was received negatively in some quarters when it was published in 1961. The book set off a huge storm of controversy and debate that lasted for years. At least part of the vehement criticism was due to the confusion in the public's mind between Taylor's book and another book published in 1961, Der Erzwungene Krieg (The Forced War) by the American historian David Hoggan. Taylor criticised Hoggan's thesis that Germany was the innocent victim of an Anglo-Polish conspiracy in 1939 as nonsense, but many critics confused Taylor's thesis with that of Hoggan. Most of the criticism was over Taylor's arguments for appeasement as a rational political strategy, his mechanistic portrayal of a world destined for another world war by post-war settlement of 1918–1919, his depiction of the Second World War as an "accident" caused by diplomatic blunders, his portrayal of Hitler as a "normal leader" and what many considered his flippant dismissal of Nazi ideology as a motivating force. Leading the charge against Taylor was his arch-enemy Trevor-Roper, who contended that Taylor had wilfully and egregiously misinterpreted the evidence. In particular, Trevor-Roper criticised Taylor's argument that the Hossbach Memorandum of 1937 was a meaningless document because none of the scenarios outlined in the Memorandum as the prerequisite for war, such as the Spanish Civil War leading to a war between Italy and France in the Mediterranean, or civil war breaking out in France, occurred. In Trevor-Roper's opinion, what really mattered about the Hossbach Memorandum was that Hitler clearly expressed an intention to go to war sooner rather than later and it was Hitler's intentions rather than his plans at the time which mattered. However, in the last edition of the book, Taylor argues that the significant parts, if not the whole, of the memorandum are in fact fabrications.

Other historians who criticised The Origins of the Second World War included: Isaac Deutscher, Barbara Tuchman, Ian Morrow, Gerhard Weinberg, Elizabeth Wiskemann, W. N. Medlicott, Tim Mason, John Lukacs, Karl Dietrich Bracher, Frank Freidel, Harry Hinsley, John Wheeler-Bennett, Golo Mann, Lucy Dawidowicz, Gordon A. Craig, A. L. Rowse, Raymond Sontag, Andreas Hillgruber and Yehuda Bauer. Rowse, who had once been a close friend of Taylor's, attacked him with an intensity and vehemence that was second only to Trevor-Roper's. In addition, several historians wrote books on the origins of the Second World War with the aim of refuting Taylor's thesis. Taylor was angered by some of the criticism, especially the implication that he had set out to exonerate Hitler, writing that "to the best of my recollection, those who now display indignation against me were not active on the public platform". Some notable examples include Gerhard Weinberg 's two-volume The Foreign Policy of Hitler's Germany and Andreas Hillgruber 's Deutschlands Rolle in der Vorgeschichte der beiden Weltkriege, translated as Germany and the Two World Wars.

The issue of misinterpretation is also addressed in Gordon A. Craig 's book Germany: 1866–1945, where it is argued that Taylor dismissed Hitler's foreign policy, as presented in Mein Kampf, and in particular, the remilitarisation of the Rhineland, as a jumble of idle thoughts written down under the impact of the French occupation of the Ruhr.

As angry as the reaction in Britain was to The Origins of the Second World War, it was greater when the book was published in January 1962 in the United States. With the exception of Harry Elmer Barnes and Murray Rothbard, every American historian who reviewed Taylor's book gave it a negative review. Perhaps ironically, Taylor had indirectly criticised Barnes when he wrote contemptuously of certain self-styled American Revisionist historians whose work Taylor characterised as marked by obsessive loathing for their own country, nostalgia for isolationism, hatred for the New Deal and a tendency to engage in bizarre conspiracy theories. Despite the best efforts of Barnes and his protégé David Hoggan to recruit Taylor to their cause, Taylor always made clear that he wanted nothing to do with either Barnes or Hoggan.

Despite the criticism, The Origins of the Second World War is regarded as a watershed in the historiography of the origins of the Second World War. In general, historians have praised Taylor for the following:

In response to Taylor's argument that Hitler had no programme because his foreign policy seemed to operate in a haphazard and slapdash way, Taylor's critics such as Trevor-Roper construed a theorem in which Hitler held "consistent aims" but sought to achieve them via "flexible methods".
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