Totally agree that Versailles by itself was eventually going to lead to significant issues. Terrible, awful Treaty. But its still a pretty high bar to climb to justify that invading France was a "good" action.
I see your point on the potential for Barbarossa to be a spoiling attack...but did Hitler ever claim it that way? Right or wrong, smart strategy or otherwise, he was the one who broke Molotov-Ribbentrop.
But its still a pretty high bar to climb to justify that invading France was a "good" action.
I guess you'd have to live for about a decade with a foreign boot on your neck before you could make a clear decision about that. Look up "The Scicilian Vespers" . That's why after WW2 we went with the Marshall Plan instead. We'd seen what trying to crush people in defeat had wrought.
I see your point on the potential for Barbarossa to be a spoiling attack...but did Hitler ever claim it that way? Right or wrong, smart strategy or otherwise, he was the one who broke Molotov-Ribbentrop.
There have been several authoritative historical books written on this subject. They are easy to find. The source material used was Stalin's invasion plans and the intel that the German High Command used to convince Hitler of the necessity of striking first.
Do you know when a fight starts? It starts long before the first punch is thrown. It starts the moment one of two people decides that there's going to be a fight. Say you're in a bar, and you happen to look over and see a guy glaring at you. He picks up a beer bottle by the neck and starts bee-lining through the crowd toward you in a purposeful manner. Now, you don't have to know him. You don't need to know what his problem with you may be. But you are now in fight. Now you can sit back and just wait and accept whatever he's going to do to you, right, wrong or indifferent, or you can get to work.
You know that France invaded Germany first after WW1 right?
No. Probably not. They always lie about who starred WW2.
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