2014's Whodunnit?

Well let's be honest, German history is going to take a bashing from certain academics and writers this year.  With the seventieth anniversary of D Day and the much-publicised centenary of WW1 approaching, certain historians are going to opine about the two world wars, Germany's defeats and Britain's crucial role in both.

Naturally WW2 was a necessary evil against the tyranny of Nazism - an abhorrent ideology that threatened to engulf Europe and the world in horror and oppression.  There were millions of victims of Nazism and the defeat of Hitler and all the others who shared his warped vision  (of which D Day was a key event), should rightly be celebrated and commemorated.  However among the millions of Nazism's victims were millions of Germans.

The war against Der Fuhrer was justified, the war against the Kaiser is much more complicated.

Not many people will comment on the 180th anniversary of the Deutsche Zollverein, an important and non-military step towards unification, or the 125th anniversary of the failed Frankfurt Parliament, another attempt at the peaceful union of Germans through the will of the people.

No, sadly the focus will be on a war that started in 1914 which Britain won and Germany lost.  Also because Germany lost the war, she was blamed for it.  This blame was accentuated by events at the end of the 1930s.  Even in the 1960s some Germans themselves accepted blame for the 1914-1918 war.  Yet at this particular time if you had asked some German academics if they killed JFK, they would have said yes.

Well, I for one, am not buying this 'it was all the Germans' fault' nonsense.  Certainly the Germans were partly to blame for 1914 and its tragic consequences.  The Schlieffen Plan included an unnecessary assault on Belgian independence, the 'blank cheque' of July made the Austrian government overly provocative and arrogant in its treatment of the Serbian government, the tension between Britain and Germany was due in no small part to the personal animosity between Edward VII and Wilhelm II, and the Kaiser should take his fair share of the blame.  So Germany was to blame  - IN PART - for 1914.

However, Serbia as well as Russia, Austria and to an extent France also need to take their share of the blame.  Likewise British commentators should also remember the role Britain played in the 1914 debacle.  In 2014, it needs to be said that Britain was also to blame for the 1914-1918 war.

This view is unfashionable, unpopular and will not get much air time this summer.  This is a shame as it is our duty and responsibility to remember history objectively and dispassionately.

Germany WAS responsible for the outbreak of war in 1914, ........but so was everyone else.