frames the drive into an early war as predominantly stemming from the leadership’s overreach founded on their own delusions. The above is a rough approximation of the view held by Richard Overy, who has consistently argued for an ‘intentionalist’ position towards the outbreak of the Second World War; intentionalists ‘… stress the individual responsibility of Hitler and his ministerial and party entourage in framing and carrying out a programme of foreign expansion, whose final goal was the achievement of world power.’ 135 This position stands in opposition to the ‘structuralist’ and ‘functionalist’ approach to the outbreak, which posits that while Hitler and his entourage certainly bear the responsibility for the war, the driving factors behind the outbreak of war in 1939 were the domestic and structural problems within the Third Reich itself. 136 Some, such as Tim Mason, even went so far as to claim of there being a ‘domestic crisis’ within Germany in 1939. 137 Other structuralists, such as Adam Tooze, have argued a more nuanced position. Tooze has rejected the idea of a crisis, while still acknowledging the severe structural problems faced in 1939, arguing that ‘Hitler was well informed about the state of German armaments production. And he was essentially correct in his assessment that Germany had reached the point at which it had very little to gain from a continuation of the peacetime arms race.’ 138 135 Richard Overy, ‘Germany, “Domestic Crisis” and War in 1939, Past & Present , No. 116, (Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 138. 136 Overy, ‘Germany, “Domestic Crisis” and War in 1939, Past & Present , No. 116, (Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 138. 137 David Kaiser and Tim Mason, ‘Germany, “Domestic Crisis” and War in 1939, Past & Present, No. 122, (Oxford University Press, Feb., 1989), pp. 205-206. 138 Tooze, p. 317.
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