Hitler in the context of "Weimar Republic"

The historiography of World War II is the study of how historians portray the causes, conduct, and outcomes of World War II.

There are different perspectives on the causes of the war; the three most prominent are the Orthodox from the 1950s, Revisionist from the 1970s, and Post-Revisionism which offers the most contemporary perspective. The orthodox perspective arose during the aftermath of the war. The main historian noted for this perspective is Hugh Trevor-Roper. Orthodox historians argue that Hitler was a master planner who intentionally started World War II due to his strong beliefs on fascism, expansionism, and the supremacy of the German state. Revisionist historians argue that it was an ordinary war by world standards and that Hitler was an opportunist of the sort who commonly appears in world history; he merely took advantage of the opportunities given to him. This viewpoint became popular in the 1970s, especially in the revisionism of A. J. P. Taylor. Orthodox historians argue that, throughout the course of the war, the Axis powers were an evil consuming the world with their powerful message and malignant ideology, while the Allied powers were trying to protect democracy and freedom. Post-revisionist historians of the causes, such as Alan Bullock, argue that the cause of the war was a matter of both the evil and the banal. Essentially Hitler was a strategist with clear aims and objectives, that would not have been achievable without taking advantage of the opportunities given to him. Each perspective of World War II offers a different analysis and provides different perspectives on the blame, conduct and causes of the war.

The Atlantic Wall (German: Atlantikwall) was an extensive system of coastal defences and fortifications built by Nazi Germany between 1942 and 1944 along the coast of continental Europe and Scandinavia as a defence against an anticipated Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe from the United Kingdom, during World War II. The manning and operation of the Atlantic Wall was administratively overseen by the German Army, with some support from Luftwaffe ground forces. The Kriegsmarine (German Navy) maintained a separate coastal defence network, organised into a number of sea defence zones.

Hitler ordered the construction of the fortifications in 1942 through his Führer Directive No. 40. More than half a million French workers were drafted to build it. The wall was frequently mentioned in Nazi propaganda, where its size and strength were usually exaggerated. The fortifications included colossal coastal guns, batteries, mortars, and artillery, and thousands of artillery pieces were stationed in its defences. Today, ruins of the wall exist in all of the nations where it was built, although many structures have fallen into the ocean or have been demolished over the years.

Heinrich Maier (German: [ˈhaɪnʁɪç ˈmaɪɐ] ; 16 February 1908 – 22 March 1945) was an Austrian Roman Catholic priest, pedagogue, philosopher and a member of the Austrian resistance, who was executed as the last victim of Hitler's regime in Vienna.

The resistance group he led is considered to be one of the most important for the Allies during World War II.

Paul Reynaud (French: [pɔl ʁɛno]; 15 October 1878 – 21 September 1966) was a French politician and lawyer prominent in the interwar period, noted for his economic liberalism and vocal opposition to Nazi Germany.

Reynaud opposed the Munich Agreement of September 1938, when France and the United Kingdom gave way before Hitler's proposals for the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. After the outbreak of World War II, Reynaud became the penultimate Prime Minister of the Third Republic in March 1940. He was also vice-president of the Democratic Republican Alliance center-right party. Reynaud was Prime Minister during the German defeat of France in May and June 1940; he persistently refused to support an armistice with Germany and unsuccessfully attempted to save France from German occupation in World War II, and resigned on 16 June.

Exorcising Hitler: The Occupation and Denazification of Germany is a 2011 book written by Frederick Taylor that examines the collapse of the Third Reich in 1945 and the subsequent Allied occupation of Germany. The book traces the transition from total war to postwar reconstruction, focusing on the military defeat of Nazi Germany, the administrative challenges faced by the occupying powers, and the implementation of denazification policies across the American, British, French, and Soviet zones. The book's title draws on the obsession with Hitler and the people of Germany's veritable worship and mythologization of him as an infallible leader, a fixation that the Allied powers sought to eradicate from the nation's psyche.

Using archival materials that include governmental records and personal testimonies, Taylor explores the immediate postwar conditions of devastation, mass displacement, food scarcity, and social disillusionment and disorientation, as well as the political debates that shaped Allied policy. The work argues that the occupation and denazification efforts of the Allies were uneven, often contradictory processes influenced by competing strategic priorities and the emerging Cold War. Exorcising Hitler situates these developments within the longer trajectory of German political and cultural transformation, interpreting the postwar period as the beginning of a protracted effort to confront the Nazi past and establish a stable democratic society. Scholars reviewing the book have by and large, praised it for its quality and sobering look at post-war sociopolitical developments.

In May 1940, during the Second World War, the British war cabinet was split over whether to discuss peace terms with Germany or to continue fighting. Opinion on the side of continuing with the war was led by the prime minister, Winston Churchill, while the side preferring negotiation was led by the Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax. The disagreement escalated to crisis point and threatened to bring down the Churchill government.

With the British Expeditionary Force in retreat to Dunkirk and the Fall of France seemingly imminent, Halifax believed that the government should explore the possibility of a negotiated peace settlement. His hope was that Hitler's ally, the still-neutral Italian dictator Mussolini, would broker an agreement. When a memorandum proposing this approach was discussed at the War Cabinet on 27 May, Churchill opposed it and urged his colleagues to fight on without negotiations. He was supported in the war cabinet by its two Labour Party members, Clement Attlee and Arthur Greenwood, and also by the Secretary of State for Air, Sir Archibald Sinclair, who as leader of the Liberal Party was co-opted to the war cabinet for its meetings about the proposed negotiations. Churchill's biggest problem was that he was not the leader of the Conservative Party and he needed to win the support of ex-Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, without which he could have been forced to resign by the large Conservative majority in the House of Commons.

Olga Louise Milles (née Granner; 24 January 1874–3 January 1967) was an Austrian-born portrait painter who spent many years at Millesgården in Sweden after marrying the sculptor Carl Milles. Although while young she was very productive, she painted less when married. After her husband was appointed professor at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in suburban Detroit, the couple spent 20 years in the United States. There she painted a number of portraits while looking after the home. Olga Milles and her husband avoided the war years in Europe, but both sympathized with Hitler and Mussolini. Two years after her husband died in 1955, she returned to Austria where she spent the rest of her life in her hometown Graz.