Conclusion
It is apposite to return here to Marx’s quote from the beginning of this thesis. Adolf Hitler and the National Socialists of the Third Reich attempted to turn Germany from a depression-crippled country into the world power within just eight years. Great strides were achieved in this direction, yet it became clear that Hitler’s lofty objectives were unachievable for a medium-sized European nation such as itself. Time and again, the Reich found itself fighting against the ‘circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.’ Thus, ‘The traditions of dead generations’ certainly weighed ‘like a nightmare’ upon the designs of Nazi Germany’s leadership. Writing in 1989, the economic historian David Kaiser stated that the question of the outbreak of the Second World War having domestic origins ‘is one of the most controversial issues in the historiography of Nazi Germany.’ 228 This thesis agrees with Kaiser, since it remains a struggle to give definitive answer to this question. Yet while a definitive answer will most likely elude historians forever, it is nonetheless possible to weigh the evidence available and endorse the structuralist position over that of the intentionalist. This thesis has taken the view of historians such as Kaiser and Tooze over that of Overy because it has found that the evidence of friction within the Reich’s diplomacy and economy is the most compelling. To take the intentionalist position is, moreover, to take a position on more sparse evidence than is available to the functionalist or structuralist. Indeed, the historians Noakes and Pridham have stated that:
228 David Kaiser & Tim Mason, p. 200.
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