practices of central state control improved. When the whole of society is regarded as a
resource for the war effort, it follows logically that civilians and their property become
legitimate targets for assault, both direct and indirect. And that, of course, is before
one even considers the distinctively German policy of genocide. In 1914–1 8 the armies
in the West were essentially stationary, a condition which permitted minimal interface
with enemy civilians. It is true that there was much mobility in the warfare in the East,
but those campaigns, though conducted with great brutality fed by racial prejudice
on the German side, were not intended to have genocidal effect. The mechanization of
warfare by 1939, and its subsequent immense geographical expansion, had the inevitable
consequence of granting the major combatants direct access to enemy civilians on a scale
radically greater than in 1914–1 8. Performance followed opportunity, as the British prac-
tice of indiscriminate ‘area’ (i.e., civilian urban area) bombing and Germany’s genocidal
endeavours in the East demonstrated to malign perfection. (One must hasten to add that
the Royal Air Force’s ‘area’ bombing was a forced choice: British bombers at night were
technically incapable of precision targeting, at least until late in the war.)
It is standard practice and convenient to refer to World War II in the singular. But
1939–45 witnessed several wars, each influencing the others to a greater or lesser degree.
Thematic or geographically focused analysis is attractive, but it has the limitation of
obscuring the historical reality that strategic behaviour in all the wars within the war
occurred simultaneously. If one is to grasp the problems of the time as they had to be
approached at that time, one should not lose touch with the binding thread of historical
narrative. The plan of attack on World War II adopted here is to open with a broadly
chronological treatment of the course of the war in Europe, keyed to explanation of the
structure of the conflict. The discussion here sets the scene for an analytical examination
in Chapter 11 of what the war was about, how it was fought and why Germany lost.
Chapters 12 and 13 are then devoted to the conflict in the Pacific and East Asia, and to
the connections between what were, in reality, two separate struggles.
The structure of the war
Hitler’s Third Reich was a state made for war. It was to be the historic vehicle that
its charismatic founder intended to employ to deliver world dominion to the Germanic
race. The exact timing of the succession of wars that he envisaged was uncertain, but
the purpose was not. In October 1936, Germany launched a Four-Year Plan of economic
mobilization, the mission of which was explained unambiguously by its highly incom-
petent director, Hermann Göring. In his words, the task of the plan was ‘preparing the
German economy for total war’ (Bessel, 2004: 4 8 ). Hitler concluded his Memorandum
on the plan with these demands: ‘I. The German Army must be operational within four
years. II. The German Army must be prepared for war within four years’ (Bessel, 2004:
49). Should any doubt remain as to Hitler’s intentions, in a now notorious gathering of
the leaders of each of the armed services of the Reich on 5 November 1937, he explained
explicitly that Germany would have to go to war by 1943–5 in order to solve its defi-
ciency in ‘living space’ (Snyder, 19 8 1: 263–73). Germany needed to be economically
self-sufficient, which is to say blockade-proof. Hitler recognized that he was running a
race between Germany’s readiness to wage war in order to implement his dreams of
Aryan domination and the response time of his intended victims.
126 War, peace and international relations