World War II was the largest conflict in history. It tore the continent of Europe apart, both during the war and in its immediate aftermath. Millions had been mowed down in battlefields from Normandy to Stalingrad to Iwo Jima. Others had been murdered in the Holocaust, or in prison camps in Soviet Russia or Imperial Japan. Still others had been killed in the bombing campaigns, from London and Warsaw to Berlin and Hiroshima. A standard estimate is that 50 million people died as a direct result of World War II, or in war-related famines. At the end, the seeds of a future Cold War had been sown, as Germany (and particularly Berlin) were divided. The conflicts in Europe were not over – nor were those in Asia, which would see further shooting wars in Korea and Vietnam in the coming decades. Thus, why did the upheavals of World War II happen? What explains the awful carnage, in this war or in the other brutal wars that have racked humanity throughout its history? The answer is both complicated and simple: historical context. Many people naturally grasp the idea that prior context is relevant – whether in historical pursuits, or in other areas of life. But how far back do you have to go to find the answers? What kinds of context shed light on things, and what others fail to do so? And how can historical context help us to make some sense out of major events – events that are both complicated and multi-faceted? (And that includes virtually everything in history, because that’s just the nature of life itself.)
American tank incinerates Japanese pillbox with a flame thrower – Saipan, 1944
These are the kinds of questions that I will try to answer in this post. I will be focusing primarily on World War II here, because popular knowledge of this subject makes it somewhat easier to illustrate my points with some related stories and anecdotes from this conflict. So, without further ado, let’s dive into the importance of historical context, and how it can allow us to make some sense out of the most complicated events of history.
Soviets preparing to ward off a German attack in Stalingrad’s suburbs
How far back should you go to find the answers? (The problems with going too far back)
So why did World War II happen, anyway? There are a lot of causes to talk about here. This quickly raises the question of how far back one should try to go here. With regards to the Holocaust, one could examine the long history of Antisemitism – going back to the Middle Ages, or even to the Biblical period of the Ancient Near East. That is, the early Hebrews had a lot of conflicts with the powerful cultures of that region. This kind of thing can help somewhat to explain the events of the twentieth-century Holocaust. But there are problems with going back that far for explanations. That is, it’s harder to form chains of causation that stretch back for three thousand years. Screwing up even one of the links in such a causal chain can disrupt the entire connection between ancient and modern. Historians still do some amount of this today (as they should), but they are right to view these methods as a less certain enterprise. We use these methods for lack of any other way to approach certain aspects of our topic. We do so in the uncomfortable awareness of the limitations of these methods. A scholar of the Holocaust would still be right to examine the prior history of Antisemitism, but they also need to look for some of the more immediate causes, such as the twentieth-century history of fascism – which has its own prior roots in Friedrich Nietzsche, and in other forms of totalitarianism. Scholars of Japanese atrocities may also need to look at prior Japanese attitudes about suicide and surrender, and how it affected their treatment of those whom they captured. (More about that here.) Scholars of World War II generally … may also need to look at prior attitudes about obedience to authority in the future Axis nations – or, for that matter, in the Soviet Union. They may also benefit from examining technological changes, such as the invention of the airplane or the submarine. But they may also benefit from examining some relatively recent events to explain what happened in World War II.
Young Holocaust survivors, liberated by the Red Army – Auschwitz, Poland (1944)
An Australian POW captured in New Guinea, about to be beheaded by a Japanese officer with a guntÅ, 1943
In this context, we keep coming back often to the First World War (as we should) …
This leads us to what historians sometimes call “proximate causation.” These causes are just called “proximate causes,” because they are near in time and place to whatever it is that they purport to explain. In the context of World War Two, this means that we keep coming back often to World War One. In so many ways, World War One helps to explain World War Two. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles sowed the seeds of another world war. For one thing, it demanded reparations from the Germans, whose economy was already racked by the demands of the truly Great War. For another thing, the Allies had failed to get any unconditional surrender from the Germans, allowing them to slide back into despotism after the initial war was over. At that point, Germany was a hotbed of poverty and anger. Thus, it was ripe for some demagogue to step in and promise “deliverance” from their troubles. The result was the rise of Nazism there in 1933, and a 12-year reign that ended in disaster for everyone involved.
Nazi book-burning in Berlin, May 1933
… although there are other factors involved (even events from the nineteenth century)
Of course, there were other factors that led to the eventual carnage of the Second World War. There is the history of European and Japanese colonization in Asia, going back to the nineteenth century. (More about that here.) There was also the prior invasion of Russia by Napoleon’s France in 1812. This presaged the eventual invasions of Russia by Germany, in both the First and Second World Wars. And there was the European “Scramble for Africa,” in which various European powers carved up the map of Africa into colonies. Many of these British and French colonies were still around, when Mussolini’s Italy grabbed some African colonies for itself during the interwar period. Many of them were also still around, when German troops marched into North Africa to rescue their Fascist Italian allies early in the Second World War itself. Nonetheless, the First World War helps to explain much of the gunpowder that was gradually being added to the magazine. Thus, it helps to explain the eventual explosion, when nation after nation was being sucked into the maelstrom.
Italian troops charging in North Africa, 1941
Various events in the between-the-wars period, and in the early part of World War II itself
But proximate causes may also include several other events in the interwar period. For example, it includes the cataclysmic war between Japan and China (not to mention Manchuria), which eventually became a part of the Second World War. It also includes some border conflicts between Japan and the Soviet Union, which would have an effect on both nations’ conduct of the Second World War. And it arguably even includes the Russian Revolution of 1917, another legacy of the First World War. This is the revolution that made Russia communist, and thus created the “Soviet Union” in the first place. There was also the Spanish Civil War, which saw an early confrontation between fascism and communism. Of course, the proximate causes also include a history of German expansionism in Europe, at various times and places. For example, the Nazis remilitarized the Rhineland, and soon annexed Austria (Hitler’s birthplace) in the Anschluss. There is the Munich Agreement, where Chamberlain gave the Sudetenland to Germany. And there is the German takeover of Czechoslovakia, and the lesser-known Danzig crisis in Poland. And, of course, there is the timing of the declarations of war, and the outbreak of the hostilities themselves in various parts of the world. Regarding the United States, there is the lesser-known fighting in the Atlantic – and, of course, the more infamous attack on Pearl Harbor. These things help to explain why nation after nation was being sucked into the conflict, and bathed in bombs and bullets.
Ethnic Germans in the Sudetenland greet German soldiers with the Nazi salute, 1938
Yes, World War II had many bad effects, from death and destruction to the Cold War
All of the aforementioned events can help, at least somewhat, to explain the causes of World War II. They also demonstrate the importance of these prior events themselves, since their ripple effects were numerous – and, in some cases, massive. But what of the effects of World War II itself? Why was the Second World War such a big deal, and what kind of a world did it leave behind for our generation? This leads us to the other part of putting events into historical context. Specifically, there is the legacy of whatever event we’re currently discussing. One might also refer to it simply as the “significance” of the said event. In the case of World War II, there are some unfortunate aspects. Like any other war, it left behind a lot of death and destruction – which caused rebuilding efforts like the Marshall Plan. There were also many families that had been affected, with branches whose future growth had been extinguished forever – with mourning for loved ones left behind. Another unfortunate aspect is the aforementioned compromises regarding Germany (particularly Berlin), and the Soviet troops that were now being parked in Eastern Europe.
Warsaw (Poland) in ruins at the end of World War II, 1945
But World War II also had many good effects, from defeating the Axis powers
But, despite it all, World War II had some (and perhaps even many) good aspects in its conclusion. A fascist threat had been defeated, and so had a militarist threat from Imperial Japan. Of course, it would still have been far better if the war had not become necessary in the first place. But, given that it had already started, despite the Allies trying very hard (perhaps too hard) to prevent it, it was better that the war finally ended in an Allied victory. It was better that Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo were all gone – that France (and other places) had been liberated, and that Britain (among other places) had been prevented from falling to the Axis. It was also better that the Nuremberg trials, and the lesser-known Tokyo war crimes trials, helped to heal some of the damage from both the aggression and the genocide. Most importantly, it was better that the United States, rather than Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, had been the first nation to get the atomic bomb. The Cold War would have been much worse, if Hitler or Stalin had gotten to this technology first.
Atomic bombings of Hiroshima (left) and Nagasaki (right), 1945
Conclusion: World War II merits all of the fantastic coverage that it has ever received
One could apply this kind of contextual approach to almost any kind of history. I’ve seen this approach used with many other topics, from the history of ideas to the history of political movements. But it may be at its most dramatic when it is applied to wars and battles – which engulf so many in chaos, misery, and death. And World War II furnishes countless examples by which to apply this kind of approach. It is a multi-faceted subject, which has drawn the attention of countless historians (professional and otherwise) ever since. I wouldn’t have wanted to fight in World War II, but I have long been fascinated by what happened therein. The question of why it happened still remains important, with causes from various bad ideas (such as fascism, militarism, and Antisemitism) as well as various prior wars. And the question of its legacy still remains important, as we now live in the world whose map it helped to shape. I personally believe that other areas of history (including earlier ones) are extremely important, and some of them even pertain to the Second World War – as mentioned earlier. But World War II is certainly important, as its historical context demonstrates. The Second World War merits all of the books, movies, and documentaries that have ever been crafted on the subject. It is the watershed of the twentieth century.
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