Germany During and After World War II (II)

choi

Charlie Laderman, The co-author of 'Hitler's American Gamble: Pearl Harbor and Germany's march to war.'  
https://www.wsj.com/articles/fiv ... -to-war-11641572437

Note:
(a)
(i) The above -- about the writer (of the column) -- is under the heading "Five Best on the March to global war" of much smaller font size (than the author's name). The "Five Best" is a column, written on a subject, where the writer chooses five best books (in his view)  on that subject.
(ii) Dr Charlie Laderman. King's College London, undated
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/dr-charlie-laderman  
(is a Lecturer in International History [since 2017] * * * Before joining KCL, he was a Research Fellow in History at Peterhouse, University of Cambridge, where he remains a Senior Research Associate. * * * He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Nottingham, where he attained a first-class BA in History and Politics. He won the University of Cambridge's Member's History Prize for the best M.Phil [sic] in Historical Studies, before going on to complete my [sic] PhD at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge")
(iii) Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Sussex_College,_Cambridge
("The college was founded in 1596 under the terms of the will of Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex (1531–1589), wife of Thomas Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Sussex, and named after its founder")

I immediately noticed that the wife retained her maiden name, which will be discussed in another posting.

(b) Five Best's formula is book title; author's name and year of publication; a number and a short commentary – in that order.

(c) "1. * * * the first volume of Daniel Todman's 'Britain's War' is essential reading. * * * Britain, though still indispensable to the fight against the Axis, was forced to confront its loss of global pre-eminence, not to its enemies, but to its new superpower allies."
(i) Professor Dan Todman, Professor of Modern History and Head of the School of History. School of History, Queen Mary University of London, undated
https://www.qmul.ac.uk/history/p ... iles/todmandan.html
("I am a historian of war and its remembrance, specialising in the history of Britain and the British Commonwealth and Empire during the two world wars. I have recently completed the second of a two volume history of Britain's Second World War which will be published by Penguin in 2020")
• The title of the 2020 book is: Britain's War: A New World, 1942-1947 or
Britain's War; A new world, 1942-1947.
(ii) Queen Mary University of London
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Mary_University_of_London
(section 3 Organisation and administration, section 3.1 Schools, faculties and departments)
• It appears that a school" in QMUL is a department in other academic institutions. Take notice that one of the three faculties in QMUL is . That makes sense if QMUL traced its predecessor to the 12th century. However, the Wiki page for QMUL does not explain this, so skip it when it comes to the history of QMUL. See next, which showed an easy-to-understand timeline.
(iii) Our History. QMUL, undated
https://www.qmul.ac.uk/about/history/
(1785: "The London Hospital Medical College is founded; it is England's first official medical school."
1916: "Pao Swen Tseng is the first Chinese student to graduate from [Westfield College of] the University of London, having studied botany under one of Westfield College's visionary academics, Dr Ellen Delf-Smith."
1934: "East London College [which had been admitted into University of London in 1915] becomes Queen Mary College, named after Mary of Teck, wife of King George V.")
• For Pao Swen Tseng, see Zeng Baosun  曾寶蓀
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeng_Baosun   
(1893 – 1978)
• Westfield College
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westfield_College  
(1882 - 1989; originally admitted only women as students and became coeducational in 1964. In 1989, it merged with Queen Mary College)
• The reigning queen of UK is Queen Elizabeth II, the older daughter (of two daughters, no son) of King George VI, who in turn was the second son of King George V (the first son would be King Edward VIII, who abdicated  within a year to marry the once-divorced         Wallis Simpson in 1937). Mary of Teck was mother of George V.
•  Mary of Teck was born at Kensington Palace, London. But Mary's father was born in present-day Croatia (then Kingdom of Württemberg, whose territory is part of president-day German state of Baden-Württemberg) and married into a (much richer and of high station) British royal family. The father was
Francis, Duke of Teck
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis,_Duke_of_Teck  
(1837 – 1900; section 2 Marriage and dukedom: Francis was "product of a morganatic marriage * * * In 1863, Francis was created Prince of Teck * * * in the Kingdom of Württemberg. He served during the Austro-Prussian War and retired from the Austrian Army when he married and moved to England in 1866. * * * He was created Duke of Teck by the King of Württemberg in 1871")

The morganatic practice prevailed in continental Europe -- but not in England. Francis had little to his name before the marriage into British royal family. Francis became (first) Prince of Teck in 1863 and (first) Duke of Teck on 1871, both titles conferred by King Charles I (German: Karl I) of Kingdom of Württemberg. Francis and King Charles I shared the same grandfather, Frederick I, the first king of Kingdom of Württemberg (before it was a kingdom, it had been Duchy of Württemberg).
• The Teck refers to Teck Castle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burg_Teck
(iv) "superpower allies" -- plural?

That could only be the United States and Soviet Union -- the latter arguably an ally during WWII. (Can't be France or Germany, which fared even worse -- and neither has been a superpower.) Yet, UK and Soviet Union have been in a different league since the end of WWII (Soviet Union might be a military power, whose power projection, though, was almost nil).


(d)
(i) Eri HOTTA  堀田江理 (born in Tokyo in 1971; BA in history from Princeton Univ 1994, MA and PhD in international relations from Oxford Univ; Her book is: Japan 1941; Countdown to infamy.
(ii) Masao Maruyama  丸山 眞男 (1914–1996; a political scientist (Japanese: 政治学者), not sociologist; 東京大学教授; he said in 1949 what was attributed to him in Five Best)

(e) "Few fortnights transformed the world as thoroughly as the first two weeks of December 1941. Evan Mawdsley's strategic history of this period is particularly insightful on the fight for Moscow, as befits a distinguished historian of Russia."
(i) the book:
Evan Mawdsley, December 1941; Twelve days that began a world war. Yale Univ Press, 2011.
(ii) I have no access to the book, but did browse through
Battle of Moscow
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Moscow   
(Oct 2, 1941-Jan 7, 1942)
, which said German military was stalled before December 1941.
(iii) The following summaries are worth reading.
• Battle of Moscow. New World Encyclopedia, undated.
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Battle_of_Moscow

Read introduction only.
• F Joseph Dresen, Review of Rodric Braithwaite, Moscow 1941; A City and Its People at War [Profile Books (publisher), Dec 9, 2010]. Kennan Institute, Wilson Center, July 27, 2011.
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/pub ... -and-its-people-war

Rodric Braithwaite
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodric_Braithwaite  
(1932- ; British Ambassador to the Soviet Union 1988-1991; British Ambassador to Russia 1991-1992)


(f) "John Thompson's stimulating study argues that President Roosevelt, in rejecting isolationism and committing to aid the Allies, was motivated less by the need to protect America's physical security or economic concerns than by a sense that immense power brought with it a responsibility to create a more benign world. * * * wage an undeclared naval warfare in the Atlantic."
(i) Oxford online dictionary (Lexico.com) says commit is a transitive verb only, but Nerriam-webster.com lists intransitive verb also, albeit without an example. Examples of commit to are rare, but a gerund or a noun follows – not an infinitive. See
Commit: "INTRANSITIVE  to promise to do something  commit to (doing) something  <He would have to commit to spending several thousand dollars>  <I do not want to commit to any particular date>"
https://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/commit  
(ii) "Between September 1939 and December 1941, the United States moved from neutral to active belligerent in an undeclared naval war against Nazi Germany. During those early years the British could well have lost the Battle of the Atlantic. The undeclared war was the difference that kept Britain in the war": James I Marino
• "It is generally considered that in Europe World War II started on 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland [that day] and the United Kingdom and France's declaration of war on Germany two days later."  https://en.wikipedia.org for "World War II."
Battle of Dunkirk  (May 26 – June 4, 1940)

choi

-------------WSJ text
Britain's War: Into Battle, 1937-1941
By Daniel Todman (2016)

1. In late 1941, Britain was both the world's largest empire and a nation fighting for survival. It ruled a quarter of the world's land surface; its navy controlled the most critical sea lanes. Yet the resources on which its population depended to live and its armed forces depended to fight came from distant colonies and, increasingly, the US. The fleet that carried these supplies was highly vulnerable to German U-boats. Unlike its enemies in Europe and its potential Japanese antagonist in Asia, Britain faced having to fight across two continents and two giant oceans. To understand the complex and precarious position in which Britain found itself in late 1941, the first volume of Daniel Todman's "Britain's War" is essential reading. It ranges across the British Empire and is as attentive to social history and the lives of ordinary people as it is to high politics and grand strategy. As Mr Todman details, from 1939 to 1941, "British strength determined, for the last time, the future of the world." As the world descended into a "truly global war," Britain, though still indispensable to the fight against the Axis, was forced to confront its loss of global pre-eminence, not to its enemies, but to its new superpower allies.


Japan 1941
By Eri Hotta (2013)

2. The dominant view among Japan's leaders in 1941 was that, with its campaign in China stalled, the country could not afford another war. Conflict with America, whose industrial output was estimated to be 74 times that of Japan, was considered particularly perilous. Yet when the Imperial Conference met to decide on war with the US, Britain and the Netherlands, all of the Japan's leaders were united in support. Eri Hotta helps us understand why. Hubristic national pride encouraged the Japan's leaders to believe that, despite lacking natural resources, their nation was destined to dominate East Asia. While most hoped to achieve this goal through diplomacy, the leadership ultimately became captives of their own bellicose rhetoric. None of them were ]sic]  willing to stop the escalation to war for fear that they would be responsible for Japan missing its moment for greatness. As Japan's foremost sociologist, Masao Maruyama, said about the country's leaders soon after their disastrous defeat: "Though wanting war, they tried to avoid it; though wanting to avoid it, they deliberately chose the path that led to it."


Fateful choices
By Ian Kershaw (2007)

3. The war that engulfed almost the whole planet by 1942 was partly caused by great demographic and geoeconomic forces that created competition and conflict among the great powers. But it was also the consequence of specific policies pursued by individual leaders. Of the 10 decisions in 1940-41 that Ian Kershaw discusses, one that has particularly perplexed historians is Hitler's decision to declare war on the US [on Dec 11, 1941]. Already bogged down in Russia, with no means of attacking the US homeland, and with Americans distracted by the new Pacific War, why would Hitler initiate formal hostilities against such a mighty foe? Mr Kershaw demonstrates that the decision was not as puzzling as might first appear. As one of the Nazi dictator's most perceptive biographers, he provides fresh insights on the psychological dimensions driving Hitler toward war with the US and the propaganda calculations that underpinned it. Yet, as he concludes, the imbalance of power between the two sides meant that Hitler's declaration was "doomed from the start."


December 1941
By Evan Mawdsley (2011)

4. Few fortnights transformed the world as thoroughly as the first two weeks of December 1941. Evan Mawdsley's strategic history of this period is particularly insightful on the fight for Moscow, as befits a distinguished historian of Russia. On December 1, Hitler's troops were outside the city; the Soviet army appeared on the verge of collapse. Stalin could not expect much help from beleaguered Britain, which looked incapable of sending its soldiers back into continental Europe. Nazi forces seemed poised to make good on Hitler's boast that “never before has a gigantic empire been shattered and defeated in a shorter time than the Soviet Union has been this time." By mid-December, however, the Red Army was resurgent. Germans were now being told by their leaders that they faced "an enemy far superior in terms of manpower and materiel" along "the longest front of all time." Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's first campaign to knock the Soviets out of the war, had failed.


A Sense of Power
By John A. Thompson (2015)

5. Historians continue to debate whether, without the Pearl Harbor attack and Hitler's subsequent declaration of war, the US would have entered either conflict of its own accord. John Thompson's stimulating study argues that President Roosevelt, in rejecting isolationism and committing to aid the Allies, was motivated less by the need to protect America's physical security or economic concerns than by a sense that immense power brought with it a responsibility to create a more benign world. This broad conception of the national interest underpinned Roosevelt’s decision, backed by public opinion, to make the US "the arsenal of democracy" and wage an undeclared naval warfare in the Atlantic.  Yet Hitler's dominance over Europe was insufficient to persuade Americans to become a full-scale belligerent. It was only after Japan's direct assault, and Hitler’s action four days later, that the US was brought decisively into war and its leaders could deploy the nation's power to create a new international order.